This week, Tempe’s Undergraduate Student Government began an aggressive social media campaign in support of Senate Bill 1190. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter the USG website — if you see USG on any of your social media feeds, you’ll see support for Medical Amnesty at ASU.
The proposed bill, which is currently in the early stages of working its way through the state Legislature, would provide immunity from prosecution for students who require medical assistance while under the influence of alcohol.
While Tempe USG’s promotion of the bill may seem excessive to some, it has not gone nearly far enough in its support. In fact, the entire campus should be concerned. This proposal affects ASU students greatly and Arizona lawmakers need to know we care.
Underage drinking on college campuses is a complicated issue. Many of our parents grew up in a world where the legal drinking age was substantially lower than today (18, 19 or 20). With the signing of the Uniform Drinking Age Act in 1984, President Ronald Reagan set 21 as the legal drinking age nationally. With limited exceptions, this remains true in every state today.
The impact and effectiveness of this legislation is disputed. On one hand, one of the strongest arguments in support of setting the drinking age at 21 is the impact of alcohol on the human brain.
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, consuming alcohol while the brain is still developing can have serious side effects. These range from brain damage and memory loss to an increased likelihood of drug abuse and increased risk of sexual violence (there is a substantial correlation between sexual assault on college campuses and alcohol consumption).
Additionally, raising the minimum drinking age has decreased the frequency of DUIs and other alcohol related injuries. The website madd.org, an advocacy group against drunk driving, reports that an estimated 25,000 lives have been saved since the signing of the Uniform Drinking Age Act.
On the other hand, underage consumption of alcohol is a widespread occurrence at colleges throughout the U.S. to say the least. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism lists all manner of statistics on college age alcohol abuse. Highlights include:
“87.6 percent of people ages 18 or older reported that they drank alcohol at some point in their lifetime; 71 percent reported that they drank in the past year; 56.3 percent reported that they drank in the past month. … In 2012, 60.3 percent of college students ages 18 – 22 drank alcohol in the past month ... 40.1 percent of college students ages 18 – 22 engaged in binge drinking (five or more drinks on an occasion) in the past month.”
I hate to be belligerent, but if any of this is news to you, wake up and smell the f-----g coffee. Breaking: College-age students drink.
Go to Buzzfeed, College Confidential, even Snapchat, Vine or Yik Yak, and you’ll find students discussing drinking. Or, just go back to college. Spend a day as a student at any given university in the U.S., and references to downing shots and stumbling home will abound.
Not all college students partake. While some claim that there is often pressure to drink as an undergraduate, it remains a choice. Drinking is not just debated by grown-ups in the real world; it is contentious even among us college kids.
At present, ASU and local law enforcement have cracked down hard on college drinking. Students who are found with alcohol in their system could receive Minor in Consumption at minimum, or depending on the circumstances, face arrest.
ASU is officially a dry campus — with limited exceptions, of course — and prospective students are informed at tours, as Chris Erskine noted in a hilarious editorial for the L.A. Times. Traditional media has documented this crackdown well; student forums such as College Confidential and Yik Yak are also often abuzz with discussion of citations and arrests.
The effectiveness of cracking down on drinking is itself a matter of debate. Some scholars, such as Ph.D. David J. Hanson, argue that harsher policies often increase dangerous consumption of hard alcohol. Some schools, such as Dartmouth, have banned hard liquor on campus, but even these policies are controversial.
So, how do we deal with this information? How should a concerned citizen interpret this this mish-mash of factoids and policies?
I’m not saying the prevalence of underage drinking makes it acceptable. As the son of parents who both have law degrees, trust me, I’ve had this discussion before. Although I may not like to admit it, they’re right.
It does not matter if drinking is legal at 18 in other countries, or if my parents did it back in day, or if “everybody does it” today. The law still applies to you even if you don’t agree with it, and if you choose to break the law, you are responsible for facing the consequences.
There is some logic behind students still receiving MICs when getting medical care. Being violently ill does not change the fact that students chose to drink beforehand.
But the illegality of underage drinking puts students in a precarious situation that no citizen should face. One of the most commonly referenced cases being brought up by USG is the ASU student who was abandoned at a hospital in a wheelchair back in 2013. The student had a blood-alcohol-content level of 0.47. While the amount of alcohol in this student’s system is concerning, it is even more disturbing that his friends did not feel comfortable immediately calling medical professionals to come help this student.
In fact, the current laws only further jeopardize the safety of students.
Getting an MIC, or worse, arrested, is a serious offense. Resolving these legal issues can entail substantial legal costs and potentially create a large obstacle in students achieving their professional aspirations.
The current laws force students who may be under the influence to pick between insuring the safety of an individual who needs medical help or possibly ruin the futures of both. This is a terrible situation that students should not have to be in. Keeping the status quo — that’s criminal.
If students believe an underage individual needs immediate medical assistance for an alcohol related health matter, they should not have to waste a second discussing whether or not to get help. By threatening students with MICs, we put citizens in need of medical help further at risk.
Another disturbing statistic listed by National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism is that more than 5,000 underage individuals die from alcohol related injuries every year.
This number should be zero, but the current enforcement of alcohol-related laws only incentivizes students to not get help when they should. This legislation may seem odd at first, given that it aids individuals who have broken the law, but it is the best way to protect students that cannot help themselves.
Medical amnesty is a complicated issue that deserves a full explanation. At the end of the day, I believe it is necessary, perhaps even vital, to make sure that students are safe.
ASU students should be able to reasonably expect help when they are dangerously ill, even if the harm was their own doing and illegal. I support SB 1190 and USG’s endorsement of the bill, and I hope you will, too.
Reach the columnist at clmurph5@asu.edu or follow @ConnorLMurphy on Twitter.
Editor’s note: The opinions presented in this column are the author’s and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.
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