Americans, or at least American public officials, seemingly cannot think rationally when it comes to drugs, including legal ones like alcohol.
One result is a senseless and completely failed "war on drugs," which at the cost of billions of dollars has achieved nothing more than jailing a hell of a lot of people without putting even the tiniest dent in the violent drug trade. The price of a gram of cocaine in Albuquerque is now about a third of what it was 15 years ago, but even in the midst of the war on terrorism, the U.S. Attorney General can find the time and resources to shut down a medical marijuana clinic, presumably to protect us all from drug-crazed cancer and glaucoma patients.
Even though it is by every estimate a far more dangerous and destructive drug than marijuana, alcohol is, of course, legal. The nanny-state forces in America managed to ban it for a while, a noble experiment that created organized crime and the Kennedy family fortune, but Prohibition was doomed to failure since alcohol clearly is, and always has been, the chosen drug of the human race. Besides, politicians like a drink now and then.
Yet America is zany even with its treatment of this legal drug. Our inevitable solution to any problem that arises from the irresponsible and stupid behavior of some is to prohibit everyone from engaging in the activity in question. And this, naturally enough, drives many otherwise responsible and law-abiding people into illegal activity, and in fact serves as an extra inducement to rebellious adolescents.
In Europe, where drinking with meals begins in the home at an early age and 16 is the typical age for buying beer and wine, the problems associated with young people and drinking are almost nonexistent compared to those in America. Here we enjoy this supreme silliness: at 18 you can vote, hold many political offices, carry a gun and be drafted to die for your country, but you cannot legally take a drink for another three years. The implication is that it requires far more wisdom and maturity to walk into a bar than into a voting booth.
The national hysteria about liquor extends onto the University campus. In virtually every non-Muslim country in the world, you can walk into a campus pub or student union and have a beer, and a professor might consider serving wine to his seminar students. At UNM, where the median undergraduate age is something like 25, you are certainly not going to find a drink, unless it is an exclusive faculty event at University House and someone has spent weeks badgering Scholes Hall for permission to serve some wine.
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And drinking at a fraternity/sorority party, even for those who are 21? Forget it. UNM's Byzantine regulations for serving liquor at a frat party make it easier to rent a hall off-campus (and get in your car and drive drunk). If I, a faculty member, went to a fraternity to deliver a talk and someone handed me a glass of wine, the fraternity would be subject to suspension.
Well, drinking and occasionally getting gasolined was certainly part of my college experience, part of the "educational experience" that those Sigma Chi boys drinking on the roof were, quite ludicrously, accused of is disturbing. I am not advocating public drunkenness and destroying property, but let us try to face reality here: drinking is something that even nerdier college students sometimes do. And as long as no one is getting hurt and nothing is being destroyed, I'll be damned if I see anything wrong with it.
I have never had anything to do with Sigma Chi, but I feel some connection to the fraternity, since I was publicly accused of instigating the famous swastika incident in their parking lot. Yes, they cooked their own goose with the repeated liquor violations, but some basketball players have engaged in far more criminal behavior, yet no one has suggested yanking the team's charter. These guys are no better and no worse than any others on campus, but they made the major mistake of vandalizing an illegally parked car that, to their immense misfortune, happened to belong to a black person. Thus, the act of a couple of goofballs becomes the tip of some vast racist conspiracy, and the clock is ticking for Sigma Chi.
Going through life fat, stupid and drunk is certainly not attractive, but the University will surely be diminished if every vestige of "Animal House" is suppressed.
Yes, I have a toga.
by Richard M. Berthold
Daily Lobo Columnist
