"To Drink or Not To Drink"
Mary Agnew's recent opinion article in, The Ithaca Journal, entitled, "Alternatives to collegiate drinking," discuses how communities and students can align with law enforcement to police students who abuse alcohol. She combats the causes of alcohol abuse and provides at least three wise solutions to the problem. These are: better community involvement; investigating the role of advertisement; and education based on a model of abstinence.
Many law enforcement and community strategies have been made to create settings where opportunities to drink are less and the temptations fewer. One of these strategies is alcohol free zones, where the drinking of alcohol is prohibited in an alcohol-free area that has been established by law enforcement or a community council. The purpose is to reduce anti-social behavior associated with chaotic street drinking and reduce violence associated with the abuse of alcohol.
Teaching alcohol education and prevention would be beneficial because it creates an awareness of the negative effects from alcohol. It is important to make a positive difference to the ways in which society understands and uses alcohol. Alcohol education's primary aim is to encourage responsible consumption of alcohol and emphasize the dangers of licit substance misuse.
New keg registration laws have proven effective because when purchasing a keg, the buyer must fill out a form that connects them to the purchase of it. Therefore, if ever confiscated by police at an underage party, they know who supplied the keg. These
involvements by the community and law enforcement are only a few examples of what can be done to solve the problem of alcohol abuse.
Agnew's next main point is that advertising plays a major role in shaping attitudes about drinking. It is no new idea that advertising affects the minds of people. "The liquor industry spends $2 billion a year on advertising and promotion." Becaus...