Current alcohol policies misguided

As peer institutions reinvent their alcohol policy, Duke continues to stand by its rules restricting the undergraduate drinking culture. Although the policies are well intended and seek to promote safe, responsible drinking, they are ambiguous to students and ineffective at targeting the demographic most vulnerable to the ill effects of alcohol and poor alcohol policy: freshmen. Ultimately, the purpose of the alcohol policy is to promote safety, yet the current policies are rife with unintended consequences that often perpetuate unsafe drinking behavior.

Although the Duke social culture varies by year, alcohol remains a central facet of the ways students socialize. Despite the wealth of knowledge on the ill effects of binge drinking, it and other potentially dangerous drinking habits such as drinking games and pregaming are still an expected part of an American college experience. From orientation week, in which some freshmen learn EMS policy first hand, to recruitment and pledging for selective social groups in the Spring, alcohol flows with a level of secrecy that can counterproductively promote unsafe behavior.

According to the Duke Community Standard, the undergraduate alcohol policy prohibits, among others, kegs, common-source containers, glass bottles and spirituous liquor or fortified wines for undergraduates, except in a licensed facility with a cash bar. While this policy is intended to promote responsible and safe behavior, ambiguities among the students regarding the precise nature of the rules and their enforcement leads to unintended consequences. On one hand, seeming contradictions raise confusion as to what is permissible to consume in the first place. Whereas Dartmouth recently issued a campus-wide ban on hard liquor, there remains a double standard at Duke in which private consumption is prohibited and, yet, students can access hard liquor at the new Loop bar. Compounding the confusion is the annual bacchanalia that is the last day of classes, in which disregard for alcohol policy is expected and seems accepted.

Such ambiguity not only negates the efficacy of the policies—many learn the rules only after being caught—but it also foments a fear that pushes many unsafe behaviors off campus. Given the myriad rules and consequences restricting on-campus parties, many selective groups have moved their parties off campus so that they may act with greater liberty without fear of the event’s suspension. In this way, not only does the policy fail to stop unsafe behaviors, it in fact opens students to real world consequences for violations and disrupts the surrounding community. Thus, instead of maintaining a safe on-campus drinking atmosphere, the alcohol policy has made an ubiquitous part of student life secretive and dangerous. With so much ambiguity, many question whether the policies are meant to discipline or promote safe behavior.

Rather than curb dangerous drinking habits, Duke’s alcohol policy is unclear and promotes unsafe drinking culture. How, then, can these policies be amended to more effectively promote safe drinking behavior amongst students? On one level, the University could model the open-door policy at institutions like Stanford. Such a system creates an open, trusting atmosphere between students and those enforcing the policies that can yield more responsible, rather than furtive and dangerous, behavior. Even more, those administering the policy should better communicate its particulars to the student body, especially freshmen who are acclimating not only to a new social scene but, also, to a new drinking culture in which they may be unaware of their limits. Although changes to alcohol policies may not result in tangible change in the short term, in the long term, they can add clarity and trust from the student body.