cbd@iham1.UUCP (deitrick) (07/24/85)
>>More of MIT: Massachusetts just raised the drink age to 21 and now only >>about 23% of MIT students are legal. Despite the fact that the MIT >>Campus Police have sole jurisdiction on campus, MIT has been going out >>of it's way to enforce the drinking age. Nobody really knows why. This >>seems to be vogue among colleges now -- following the drinking ages. >Perhaps one reason is that injuries, deaths, and property damage have >been known to occur at on-campus parties, with alcohol apparently >being a contributing factor, and the colleges/universities do not >wish to be found liable. Could any legal beagles tell us what the >law says about this? In any case, deans do not relish phoning >parents at 1 a.m. to tell them their daughter is dead, as happened >here a year or two ago when a freshman who had been drinking at a >dorm party fell out of a fourth-story window (which was missing a >screen) and landed on her head. I can second Rich's opinion. When I was an undergraduate at a state college in New York in the early 70's, I served on a volunteer ambulance that served mostly the college community. I had had Emergency Medical Technician training, so I was an attendant. I used to work from 4 P.M. Friday until 8 A.M. Saturday, and it was a rare weekend that we got any rest before sunrise Saturday. Most of the problems we took care of were caused by alcohol abuse. More than once we had to go to a dorm party to revive some student who had too much to drink, went to throw up into a toilet, passed out, and stopped breathing. Occasionally, we would have someone who had too much to drink, started to vomit, couldn't stop, and wound up spending the night on a stretcher in the Health Center vomiting bile until the Compazine (is that right? It's been a long time) took effect. Listening to those sessions was sickening in itself. The most common side effect of drunkenness was injury because the drunk simply couldn't control what (s)he was doing and frequently felt no pain. One night I, my helper, the Resident Assistant on that floor, and two other students had to wrestle with a thoroughly intoxicated female student who was bleeding profusely from a gash on her scalp. It took us a half hour to get her under control, dress and bandage the wound, and get her to bed. I was told later that the woman didn't know a thing about that night until she went to comb her hair in the morning, found and was bewildered by the dressing we had applied, and asked for an explanation. My point is that alcohol abuse frequently has effects more serious than a hangover. At the time, the only effects were personal (and maybe financial, if they had treatment in the hospital). However, times have changed since then and I expect that if the same thing happened today there would be lawsuits against the college administration for allowing situations where such could happen (contributory negligence? I don't know). If a person is of the legal drinking age, then the college can't prevent that person from drinking, but it doesn't have to allow, encourage, or condone any alcohol abuse. More power to MIT. Carl Deitrick ihnp4!iham1!cbd ******************************* The opinions expressed herein are mine alone, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of AT&T Bell Laboratories *******************************