Underage drinking

Part 1

By: Lindsay Bryant

Posted: 5/3/07

Five hundred and fifty-four: the number of San Jose State University students who violated the alcohol policy in a span of nine months.

Seventy-three: accounts for misdemeanor offenses by students cited by the University Police Department.

Twenty-two: the amount of liquor stores, 7-Elevens not included, concentrated within a two-mile radius of SJSU.

For one freshman living in Campus Village, the numbers are all too real.

Maggie Roberts has been caught twice for underage drinking in Campus Village. She is now on probation for a year and must attend alcoholism classes.

"It is just ridiculous - the effort to bust people for drinking. It's going over the top," said Roberts, a nursing student.

Though alcohol is easily accessible for SJSU students, a clear number of how many underage students are drinking and not getting caught, is no where to be found. Some students argue their consumption of alcohol is inevitable, especially those living away from their parents and on campus.

Others, such as the University Police Department, professors and local business owners, say the "over 21 law" rules the land.

"The debate of whether or not a student can handle alcohol is left to sociologists, psychologists and alcohol experts," UPD Sgt. John Laws said.

This debate draws stark differences between authority figures and students who just want to be left alone.

With 554 reported cases of students violating the university's alcohol policy in the last nine months, according to the SJSU Office of Judicial Affairs - about five violations each weekend - the incidence of students drinking is all too apparent.

Toben Nelson, an assistant professor of epidemiology and public health at the University of Minnesota, discussed his research of underage binge drinking in a phone interview Tuesday afternoon.

"We continue to conduct new studies," Nelson said. " … In our general findings we have found that fewer restrictions, the cheaper the price of alcohol, the enforcement of the restrictions, all correlate with how much alcohol is consumed by minors.

"And with more drinking, it is proven there is an increase of negative effects."

As a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health College in 2001, Nelson co-authored a study about underage binge drinking and deterring factors. The study was published in the American Journal of College Health and can be accessed at http://webapps.ou.edu.

Through four years of research and thousands of surveys, Nelson and his colleagues found correlations between underage drinking, violent crimes and high-risk sexual behavior.

"Our general findings were that the higher level of alcohol consumption is related to harmful behavior," Nelson said Tuesday.

Surveying 4,527 college students across the country, Nelson and other Harvard University professors assessed underage drinkers with questions of accessibility, frequency, number of drinks and characteristics of binge drinking.

"This is especially true for large groups," Nelson said.

According to the Harvard study, "Underage college students' drinking behavior, access to alcohol and deterrence policies," binge drinking can be considered four to five drinks in a single episode or "drinking to get drunk."

The effects shown in the study proved that "the incidence of alcohol is directly linked to increased numbers of morbidity and mortality in the U.S.," Nelson said.

A similar study published in 2005 examined the adverse results from underage binge drinkers on college campuses and the rate compared to the alcohol policy in each state.

The results found that the more lax the law, the more binge drinking, violence, sexual assaults and other crimes, such as theft and vandalism, occur on college campuses. Death rates are also higher, especially in vehicular accidents.

"Alcohol is related to every violent crime on campus," Laws said. "Especially sex offenses."

The prepotency for crime on campus thus increases with every drunk student.

And with the SJSU alcohol policy stating that any person violating state or federal law will be subject to penalties established by these laws, students living on campus see the consequences increase.

"There are thousands who have violated the student code of conduct," SJSU Judicial Officer Debra Griffith said. "But we do not have definite numbers on how many were related to underage drinking."

That number is 73, according to the University Police Department for the calendar year of 2006.

This number compares to 39 in 2005 and just 20 in 2004, the year before the opening of Campus Village - a number high enough for students living on campus to show a concern for rowdy and sometimes dangerously intoxicated minors.

Although deterrents hit students at all sides, from UPD to California law, resident advisers are the first line of defense.

Still, this does not stop minors from drinking in their rooms or gaining access to alcohol from friends, parties and local liquor stores.

The policy at SJSU states that students will be referred to the Office of Judicial Affairs upon the violation of the law.

Roberts and a few friends gathered to discuss underage drinking in on-campus life. A friend who wished to remain anonymous said, "If you deny it, you can get off getting in trouble."

"That's happened before," said freshman Jenna Shulz. "If you say 'it wasn't mine' then usually nothing happens."

But Roberts and a few friends were caught twice earlier this semester. Once for posting a photograph on the networking Web site Facebook holding alcohol. The second time when Roberts and some friends met in her suite in Campus Village to decide what to do that evening, when a resident adviser heard the word "alcohol" through an open window.

The adviser busted the girls for violation of the alcohol policy, even though Roberts said they kept to themselves.

The adviser ordered Roberts and company to dump out the alcohol and watched as they did so.

The consequences are steep for "those who don't deserve it" some students say.

"They assume that everyone here is not going to drink. This is college, c'mon," said Kelly Hamilton, a freshman majoring in business administration and marketing.

Hamilton and her suitemate Jenna Schulz expressed that the punishments do not fit the crime.

If students plan to drink despite being of age, Roberts questioned how safe it is to send drunk students into downtown San Jose instead of the security of their own bedrooms.

"It's more dangerous (in downtown)," Roberts said. "In here you don't have to worry about driving anywhere."

At other colleges like California State University, Chico and the University of California Santa Barbara, the reputation of being a "party school" lends itself to easier access to alcohol for minors, according to the magazine U.S. News and World Reports.

"It is completely different at other schools," Roberts said about on-campus policies on alcohol. " … Completely different."

Riley Richards, the former president of Campus Village Building C, said he lost his position after getting caught with marijuana in his suite.

Richards said that UPD officers have been called to his room a few times, usually for suspicion of the use of marijuana.

"As far as alcohol, no one I know knows the law on attempting to buy it," Richards said. "If they ask for ID and you say 'no' are you arrested for it?"

Hamilton said she has purchased alcohol at El Dorado Food and Liquor on 449 Keyes St. despite not being of age and without being asked to show identification.

"It's easier to get it when you're a girl," Hamilton said. "I only did that once because I was scared of getting caught."

For Hamilton, Roberts, Richards and others, getting alcohol is not a problem. The problem is not getting caught.

The statistics of how students access alcohol on campus are cloudy, but for Roberts and friends, they remain part of the 564 cases that pass through the hands of Judicial Officer Debra Griffith.

Prohibition at SJSU is nowhere in sight.

And the legal drinking age of 21 on campus will remain despite an effort to drink by underage students.

"The university cannot turn a blind eye to these problems," Sgt. Laws said. "Students say 'can't you just dump it out?' or 'it's my friends.' No we can't. It is a liability to the university.

"And (the citation) is going to be expensive and a pain in the butt. But these are the consequences."

Griffith said there is no definite punishment by the Office of Judicial Affairs, the liaison between on-campus living and UPD. Instead, she works on a case-by-case basis.

"Generally it goes from probation to suspension to expulsion," Griffith said.

But as students yearn for the sweet taste of cheap beer, purchased illegally or by friends over 21, the deterrents will not eliminate underage drinking.

And for Nelson, an expert in this field of research, the incidence of alcohol in society is alarming.

"Campuses take full blame when in reality it is very few colleges that supply alcohol to their students," Nelson said. "Campuses cannot police every incident - they need to form strong coalitions, including police, neighborhood associations, city council, the mayor's office, those who care about the issue - and deter students from engaging in risky behaviors."

***The law not withstanding, if students want to drink, they will find a way.

In the May 10 edition of the Gold Fold the Spartan Daily will investigate local liquor stores and restaurants selling alcohol to students under 21 years old.