COLUMN: Beer choice of our generation

From Amar Kosaraju's, "And Justice For All," Fall '97 From Amar Kosaraju's, "And Justice For All," Fall '97My beer-miester is a thing of beauty. It's construction is simplistic and efficient in design. An old refrigerator was transformed into my beer-miester within a few simple steps. A hole was precisely placed in the center of the refrigerator door from which a tap was securely attached. When I came to Penn for graduate school, my old fraternity brothers from college decided to let me safeguard the beer-miester. During college, it was in the center of our house with a full keg always ready to go. We had happy hours, mixers, parties and other social gatherings that made full use of the beer-miester. During my first semester at Penn, I stocked the beer-miester with a half-keg, but quickly realized that my drinking opportunities diminished in graduate school, so it became prudent to keep a quarter-keg on hand. Now that I am older, I realize that during college, alcohol was a part of the environment, part of the college atmosphere. I do not make excuses for drinking nor do I contend that drinking is beneficial in any respect. However, it was a choice I made during college. As a graduate student, I can look back on my college years and analyze the decisions I made when it came to drinking. I made the choice not to drink excessively knowing the potential of getting sick and hugging the toilet. I made the choice not to get into drunken fights knowing my limited bench-pressing ability and overall lack of physical presence. I made the choice to own my beer-miester. I made the choice to take the responsibility for my drinking. At M.I.T., a student died of alcohol poisoning after drinking at a fraternity party. The administration took quick action by banning every fraternity from holding social functions. We have decided that fraternities, the people at Hill House, bar owners and others are responsible for the drinking problem that is affecting our youth. For some reason, we look at everyone else to blame, but never think of finding the person who put that drink to his or her lips accountable. We treat these freshmen and others who drink as poor victims who did not have the power to control their actions. The reality is we don't teach choice or responsibility. We believe in the philosophy that "it's OK as long as you don't get caught." In many European countries, youths are legally able to drink. But these countries don't have the number of alcohol-related incidents that plague our youth. Youths are given the responsibility and choice of drinking, and amazingly do not abuse that privilege. Our society does not believe in responsibility, but in punishment. The University's administration announced a new initiative to curb drinking by bringing the Liquor Control Enforcement Bureau in to regulate Penn's social scene. The agents will probably bust about 100 students and feel very good about themselves as the other 5,000 plus students who do not get caught will drink themselves to oblivion. The freshman who died last week at M.I.T. made the choice to rush a fraternity, made the choice to pledge a certain fraternity, made a choice to drink his first beer, and made a choice to drink his eighth beer. We will blame the fraternities and try close down each and everyone of them. We should then hold the people at Hill House accountable for the drunkenness occurring there. We should also close the bars around campus, along with all the distributors in the area.We can do all these things to stop drinking, and we all know the end result -- people will still drink. We have the propensity in this country to handle every problem by trying to cut off the supply, but we never try to understand the demand. We will never blame ourselves or try to comprehend the problem, but will shift the responsibility to someone else. Former President George Bush told us that drugs were a huge problem and the Columbian drug lords, the pushers and the dealers were all to blame. He invested billions of our tax dollars on stopping these drug dealers, but never thought of stopping the drug takers -- the American people. If we are to stop the alcohol-related incidents, then we need to teach responsibility and choice rather than trying to cut off a supply that will always be there with the demand. My beer-miester provided me with a great supply of alcohol -- a supply that is easily accessible to everyone. But we are the ones who need to make the choices and regulate the demand.