Why "Wet Zones" Should be an Option.

In order to form a middle ground in the argument, we are proposing that campuses provide supervised “wet zones” for ages 18 and above. These zones could possibly take the form of a campus bar or a club that is sponsored, staffed, and monitored by the college it would reside in. These areas could then allow students to buy cheap alcohol while still getting a party feel and being safe. They could even potentially be self sufficient with that exact income it produces or may also provide as a source of income for the University supporting it. These “wet zones” would however have strict rules to provide student safety.

These guidelines would include:

• Commuters must give their keys and show proof of having a designated driver.
• Cuttoff limits on how much alcohol can be bought.
• Escorts back to a student's room by a supervisor with only the people the student arrived with.

 We believe that these policies will help reduce alcohol related accidents and that having a wetzone would remove the taboo of drinking on campus, which will hopefully prevent students from going to bars or parties in order to gain access to alcohol.

Dry Campus Vs. Wet Campuses

    Students drinking on college campuses has been a cultural normality for generations. In order to combat this, many campuses have a “dry campus” policy that doesn’t even allow students that are of legal age to drink to have alcohol on campus. But do these policies really stop college students from doing it? The answer is no and because of this, most colleges have removed the ban for those of legal drinking age, but that still doesn’t get rid of the problem that no matter what, underage students are going to drink. Younger students have older friends that supply alcoholic beverages to them. This enables binge drinking within the underage community. Many parents have problems with their children going to colleges with “wet” campuses due to worries of drunk driving, fighting, sexual assault, and alcohol poisoning.

Most of these concerns are valid, proven by the statistics taken by Wechsler, Henry, and Toben F. Nelson in the study, “What We Have Learned From the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study: Focusing Attention on College Student Alcohol Consumption and the Environmental Conditions That Promote It.” saying that with each alcoholic drink consumed, the chances of injury increase drastically (Wechsler and Nelson 2006). Universities that are promoting a dry campus have the intentions of reducing these injuries and removing the problems that involve alcohol consumption. While wet campuses feel that they should allow students to do as they please if they are of legal age because, well, they are adults. Making that decision is something that comes along with the responsibilities of being an adult.
But, what if we could come up with a compromise that allows both sides of the argument to be satisfied? We are proposing that campuses provide “wet zones” among college campuses for ages 18 & up. You can review our proposal here.

How to Curb Binge Drinking at U.S. Colleges: Sell Alcohol on Campus.

Source: Shavin, Naomi. "How to Curb Binge Drinking at U.S. Colleges: Sell Alcohol on Campus." New Republic. N.p., 16 Dec. 2014. Web. 18 Nov. 2015.

Summary: This article was written in response to The New York Times’ article, “Why Colleges Haven’t Stopped Drinking,” due to the fact that the article missed something that could help fix the drinking problem, having a bar on campus.

The article provides several examples as to why having a bar on campus could work and how it could prevent drinking related accidents. These include DUIs and DUI-related student deaths could decrease dramatically,  drinks being less susceptible to spiking and drugging, which could reduce incidents of sexual assault on campus, keeping students closer to a hospital if medical care is needed, bartender hired by the school would be incentivized to cut off students who are too intoxicated, Student groups could hold events at campus bars rather than off campus, Schools with campus bars could monitor students’ drinking habits and create more effective alcohol education programming.

Quality: This article addresses many of the problems related to alcohol related accidents and backs up its data with reputable sources such as from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). The NIAAA is a branch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Resources which is sponsored by the United States Government. This leads us to believe that the article's statistics are valid and reputable.

Issues: This article bases some of its reasons off of personal experiences they had at a school in London where the author states "the drinking age is 18". Therefor separating it from the US. Also the author says that they had to wait in a line to even get in the door of this off campus bar, saying "the wait to get into one of the campus bars—Guy’s Bar—was almost always over an hour." (Shavin). Many students are not going to want to wait in a line to get into the bar when they could get into a party and get a drink almost immediately.    

Key Words:

binge drinking

on-campus bar

DUI

drinking related accidents

controlled environment
incentivized