The Tufts Administration recently announced changes to the Spring Fling alcohol policy aimed to reduce alcohol related incidents. In attempt to stop students from over-indulging during the concert, of-age students will no longer be able to bring up to a six-
pack of beer into the concert. Unfortunately, this change completely ignores the issue at hand, and will only make matters worse for both students and the administration.
As we’ve talked about before, college administrations seem to think that by making beer less available, they will somehow magically stop people from over drinking. This is ridiculous, and absolutely false. As a college student, I can say with certainty that if the average student knows that they will not be able to drink at an event that they want to be drunk for (like a Spring Fling concert), then they will heavily pregame it so they can “keep the buzz” during the event. It’s a dangerous game to be playing, yes, but it’s what happens. And it happens often. But for some reason, college administrators, and specifically those at Tufts, don’t seem to understand this concept. When pressed that such a change might cause students to pregame heavily, Bruce Reitman, the Tufts Dean of Students, showed just how out of touch he is with reality by responding with this quote:
“The fact that there won’t be alcohol for five hours … does not mean that therefore people should drink more in the neighborhood or dormitories,” Reitman said. “That’s just stupid.”
Really Dean Reitman? Your best response is to call it stupid? Excuse me, but that’s just a stupid answer. By pretending a problem doesn’t exist, you can never fix it. The problem with the current “drinking culture” (as “authorities” are quick to call it) is that students are drinking for the sake of getting drunk. I’ll be the first to admit that’s not a healthy or safe way to go about drinking at all, but it’s the fact of the matter right now. Students today have grown up in a culture where alcohol is glorified in the media and is the central focus of most parties. Couple this with the fact that a large majority of college students cannot legally drink and are exposed to readily available alcohol for the first time when they reach college, they are going to go wild. Taking away beer for “five hours” during the day isn’t going to keep these kids from drinking during the concert. Instead, students will sneak hard alcohol into the concert in flasks, in water bottles, in tampons soaked in vodka and shoved up their asses. You are not going to stop underage kids from drinking by stopping of-age kids from enjoying their legal right to drink. It simply doesn’t make sense.
This new policy will do nothing to reduce the TEMS-ings during Spring Fling, I’ll tell you that right now. If kids drink like they feel “they are supposed to” during Spring Fling, we’ll see the same results as last year. The only thing that is going to alleviate the problem is a change to the culture itself, and that is something that cannot be done through policy change. It’s that simple. Now how can we go about this? I can’t honestly say. I think a move to lower the drinking age and encouraging parents to teach their kids how to enjoy responsibly is the first step. Unfortunately, the Mothers Against Drunk Driving lobby is too strong (and also out of touch) for this to happen. Either way, it’s definitely an uphill battle.
To sum things up, we at W2Fy are only up at arms with the new policy on a ideological level. It has no affect on me. I’m still going to wake up early and start drinking. I’ll still be hammered by the time I get to the concert. The only change will be is I won’t enjoy a beer with my of-age friends. Any shot at somewhat responsible drinking during the concert is gone. I guess that’s a win for the administration though, they can say there were no incidents caused by drinking during the concert, which I guess is what they think Spring Fling is. The problem is, Spring Fling isn’t just the concert–it’s the whole affair of an all day party. It’s getting drunk and having a good time in warm weather, before finals. Oh, and it’s also seeing a sweet concert.
As a final note, keep an eye open as Spring Fling gets closer for W2FY’s All Encompassing Guide to Spring Fling with a special section on how to drink all day even if you can’t bring beer into the concert.
Welp, see ya later.
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