Killer Fuel for Partying Students

        It's one thing to be served a glass of wine at home with your family. It is one thing to have a pint or two with friends in a pub. However, it is a quite different thing to use alcohol as party fuel.
        Yet, that's what countless young Canadians do each year. The results can be, well, about the worst imaginable. According to a recent article in the Winnipeg Free Press, 28 year-old Dawn Huston may never walk again. There are many other things she may never do. One night in February, 2010, after liquor shots and beers with friends, she got into a car. To date that's the last time she walked. The driver has since admitted to having had twice the legal limit of alcohol in her blood as she got behind the wheel. She missed a stop sign, and the resulting crash broke Huston's neck.
        At Nova Scotia's Acadia University, not far from where I live, a first-year student arrived from Alberta earlier this September. Within days he was dead. The parents did not want his name published, so you will not see it here. What was not hidden from the media, however, was the fact that he died from alcohol. Suddenly, the dangers of "high risk drinking" and "drinking games" were out there for all to see.
        There's more. An online Canadian Broadcasting Corporation article discusses the findings of a 2004 survey taken by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto. It found that 32 per cent of university undergraduates drank at a dangerous level. "Ten per cent of those surveyed reported having experienced alcohol-related assault, 9.8 per cent reported alcohol-related sexual harassment and 14.1 per cent reported having unplanned sexual relations because of being inebriated."
        Students tell anecdotes about streets littered with broken glass near Queens University, revellers urinating on front yards, and the night air filled with profanity. Another student observes that his friends get drunk and then get sick. One follows the other. And alcohol-driven misbehaviour by Fanshawe College and University of Western Ontario students in London got a lot of air time back in 2008. The local police created project LEARN to "clamp down" on drunk students.
        So, two things. First, as Spiderman says somewhere, "You always have a choice." We always have a choice about whether to commit to a night of binge drinking. We can say either yes or no to driving drunk or getting into a car with a driver who is probably over the limit. Normally the person most responsible for what happens to me is me. And the person most responsible for what happens to you is you.
        Second, all that being said, we make it hard for many to say yes to drunk-free student days. Ads glamorizing alcohol fill our video screens and print media. This is not accidental. It is planned manipulation. Beer and liquor manufacturers stand to make a lot of money for their share-holders by suggesting to students that they will be more attractive after a few drinks. I don't know. The girl at the other end of the bar may look more attractive after you have had a few shots. But are you sure that you look all that much better to her just because you've dramatically raised your blood-alcohol content?
        Nevertheless, the ads keep doing their work. Beer trucks unload their product on campuses across North America, and if they can get permission, stay visible during orientation festivities in all their chrome-encrusted glory. Movies glamorizing drink and the stupid behaviour that goes with it are imprinted on our memories (by our choice). The peer pressure to drink is,ubiquitous, everywhere. And instructions for drinking games are available to all online.

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The death at Acadia University can, perhaps, do some good. It can help colleges, universities, and the student unions back away from partnering with beer and alcohol companies which have absolutely no ability to help schools fulfill their mission, that is to educate. Alcohol does not make us smart or informed. It makes us dull - and stupid if it draws us from class work. Further, this student's death can make us aware of the dangers of peer pressure when "friends" tell us that we have to drink in order be accepted.
        Binge drinking? Frequent visits to the bar? Loading up the dorm room fridge with booze? Pre-party shots? Think again. The life you save may be your friend's, or yours. The education you save may help you. And the habits you learn might just make the difference between a life lived well and one slip-sliding over the edge of failure.