Bravo to the 3rd annual BE Wise event held to educate people about alcohol poisoning and increase alcohol awareness.  Over time, these gentler harm reduction programs have a major impact via slow and progressive changes in social norms.

 To wit, since 1964, each Surgeon General has said that smoking tobacco, a behavior with a high addiction rate, was hazardous to health. During most of those five decades, smoking cessation aids such as nicotine gum and patches were not available.  Yet that persistent message helped lower the percent of young adult (18–24) smokers from over 50 percent to less than 20 percent and increased the percent of young adults that never used from 50 percent to over 70 percent.  All this occurred without the arrest or incarceration of a single tobacco grower, user or seller.  So much for the War on Drugs approach.

However, as an addiction psychiatrist, I believe there is another policy that could be implemented which would be more quickly effective with respect to alcohol use and behavior.

The university could promote/install alcohol breathalyzers in every living facility, not for any disciplinary reason or tracking, but so that students who come home from a night of drinking could get an estimate of their blood-alcohol level. This would enable them to see whether or not, for example, their level was over the limit for driving while intoxicated or if their alcohol level approached the area where alcohol poisoning and high risk negative behaviors become much more frequent.  It would also alert some to their genetic tolerance for alcohol.

Students would start to see the relationship between their blood-alcohol level, behavior and perceived intoxication. Then they could balance those effects with the positive effects of alcohol, e.g. anxiety and shame reduction, and start practicing effective, informed consent and harm reduction.

College is for education.  Trust students to voluntarily get their personal data.  They’ll do the math.

Gene Tinelli, MD
Class of ’66, ‘69
Dept. of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science
SUNY Upstate Medical Center