Avoiding accidents waiting to happen

In the past few years, the term "binge drinking" has become a popular catch phrase. Everyone uses it -- students, campus administrators, parents, even the media. If you didn't know any better, you would assume this huge binge drinking epidemic only recently swept across the nation and that prior to the decade of the 2000s, everyone had four or fewer.

Wrong. For better or worse, binge drinking has been a part of college for generations, but we've only recently come up with a catchy name for it. Any member of the Penn community who has been at the University for an extended period of time will confirm this. In fact, if you talk to Scott Reikofski, director of the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs, or Michele Goldfarb, director of the Office of Student Conduct, they will tell you that certain elements of the drinking culture at Penn were actually worse in the mid-to-late '90s than they are today.

Back then, parties were routinely broken up by the police. Fights were more prevalent. People charged money at the door. Kegs were the container of choice. The whole drinking culture was an accident waiting to happen. And on March 21, 1999, Penn alumnus Michael Tobin plunged to his death at the now-defunct Phi Gamma Delta fraternity house. Immediately following his death, the University banned alcohol at all campus events for a period of five weeks. Outraged students hosted protests on College Green, peppering President Judith Rodin and Provost Robert Barchi with expletives. Once the air cleared, the University's drinking culture re-emerged, governed by a new alcohol policy.

The alcohol policy (even after the Alcohol Response Team's recent changes) is much the same today as it was when it was created in 1999. So the big question is, has it made a difference?

The answer is unequivocally yes. The registered party system has been a great success, despite the perception that it forces parties off campus. Police are no longer required to shut down events, cover charges are a thing of the past, and alcohol-related violence has decreased. However, as Reikofski and Goldfarb both point out, the reduction in these occurrences does not necessarily indicate that a safer culture actually exists. On Sept. 19, 2004, Matthew Paris was nearly killed in another tragic fall, this time at the Psi Upsilon fraternity house. It appears that while the drinking culture may have changed, the end result is still the same. So what can we learn from all of this?

The lesson is that no alcohol policy can prevent tragic accidents from happening. More specifically, no amount of rules and regulations can prevent people from behaving irresponsibly. It's easy to say that Michael Tobin and Matthew Paris made stupid decisions that resulted in their falls. However, I'm sure many of us, including myself, have made equally stupid decisions, only ours didn't result in a multi-story tumble. So what should be done about this?

The answer is that our campus drinking culture needs to change. While the culture is not out of control, especially when compared to other campuses across the country, irresponsibility continues to reign. Oftentimes, there is a group dynamic that leads to high-risk behavior. People encourage their friends to drink more and more, and once everyone is sufficiently drunk, they stagger home to bed.

But maybe they don't make it to their beds. Maybe they break their foot. Or their arm. Maybe they get transported to HUP because a crotchety RA thinks they're too drunk. Maybe they get in a fight. Or steal something. Maybe they get sexually assaulted. But hopefully they don't fall off a balcony.

While there is an obvious range of severity to the consequences of drinking too much, the point is that none of these outcomes should be acceptable. Sure, you can live with a broken ankle. If you broke a window, it can be fixed. However, if people drink responsibly, none of these things needs to happen, at least not at the rate at which they currently occur.

Perhaps I'm an anomaly. Maybe I'm the only person who knows people who have experienced the negative consequences listed above. Maybe I'm the only one who can think of a dozen other undesirable outcomes I've seen or experienced. Maybe, but I doubt it.

Our drinking habits need to change, and we're the only ones who can change them. So next time, stop your buddy from showing you how he can do a backflip after funneling a beer. Or try actually drinking four or fewer. Don't say you "drink responsibly" because you vaguely remember how you got home or because you didn't make any drunk dials. Say you drink responsibly because you do, and you make sure others around you do too. Otherwise, you're an accident waiting to happen.

Conor O'Callaghan is a senior in the Management and Technology program from Scottsdale, Ariz. The OC appears on Fridays.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.