AlcoholEdu: Above the Law

By Seth Goldberg | Sunday, November 3, 2002

For better or for worse, Americans cannot legally purchase or consume alcohol until they turn twenty-one. Most accept this, and there is little resistance to drinking laws, save for teens who bemoan the dry years ahead as they sip from a glass of Glenfiddich stolen from their parents' liquor cabinets. The drinking age, however, has recently found an unlikely challenger: Dartmouth College.

This fall Dartmouth has for the first time offered to students an internet-based alcohol education program. This, by itself, is unremarkable. More eye-opening is the scope and cost of the program, and that the College wants to permit underage students to drink upon completion of the program.

OutsideTheClassroom, a private company located in Newton, MA, developed AlcoholEdu. The program is currently offered at Duke, Cornell, John's Hopkins, and a host of other colleges and universities. Villanova University and Sienna College have made freshman participation in AlcoholEdu mandatory.

The program, run by Dick's House, involves a series of online lessons, and culminates with a final examination. At a time when College employees must deal with impending layoffs, and libraries face budget cuts and possible closures, Dartmouth has spent $10,000 on a program that will, ideally, allow underage students to drink. In addition to these monies, the College has provided to each course graduate two free passes to the Nugget Movie Theatre. There are five weekly raffle prizes awarded to course participants, including Dirt Cowboy coupons and $60 gift certificates to the Dartmouth Co-op.

AlcoholEdu appears to be a futile attempt to limit alcohol abuse, though well-intentioned. But Dr. John Turco, the Director of Dick's House, would like AlcoholEdu to have greater reach than it does at Duke or Cornell. According to the Daily Dartmouth, he says that ideally, alcohol permit cards would be issued to underage students who complete the course, allowing them to buy and consume alcohol. Should substance-abuse problems arise or should alcohol-related violations occur, the card would be rescinded. This aspect of the program would be analogous to receiving a learner's permit after successfully completing a driver's education course.

This is certainly not in keeping with the alcohol programs established at other institutions, let alone New Hampshire state law. OutsideTheClassroom makes no mention of permissible underage drinking on its website. So what is going on here? Does Dartmouth College think that it can change state law? Is Dr. Turco an idiot? Dr. Turco declined to comment, but after all, he did misdiagnose bacterial conjunctivitis as viral conjunctivitis, advising no treatment for a period and allowing the outbreak to spread to epidemic proportions. Perhaps this is just the latest in an unending stream of misquotes in the Daily Dartmouth. For the purposes of this article, let us assume that Dr. Turco was quoted correctly, and that his words accurately represent the intentions of Dick's House and the College. With this in mind, maybe it is best to take a step back and examine the law from which the College would apparently choose to be exempt.

After Prohibition, the drinking age was almost universally twenty-one. Between 1970 and 1975, the period in which the minimum voting age was lowered, twenty-nine states lowered the drinking age as well. In 1973, New Hampshire adopted a drinking age of eighteen, and then in 1979, raised it to twenty. Scientists began studying the effects of the lowered drinking age, focusing primarily on motor vehicle accidents, and found that, among teens, a lower minimum age corresponded to a significant increase in accident-related deaths. Armed with this evidence, citizen advocacy groups pressured the states to restore the drinking age to twenty-one, and sixteen did so between 1976 and 1983. In response to concerns that minors would travel across state lines to purchase and consume alcohol, the federal government enacted the Uniform Drinking Age Act in 1984, which threatened to reduce federal transportation funds granted to those states that did not raise the minimum age to twenty-one. All fifty states eventually complied with this mandate, with New Hampshire adopting the new federal standard in 1985.

A smattering of Republicans argued against the federal enforcement of minimum drinking age. On July 1, 2001, the Manchester Union-Leader wrote, 'While [the Union-Leader] supports keeping New Hampshire's drinking age at twenty-one in order to give new drivers time to mature, we wish the federal government hadn't unilaterally imposed its will on Granite Staters. We are capable of deciding the issue ourselves.' Could Dartmouth College, in its desire to operate outside current drinking laws, be advocating a hard-line stance on states rights?

Regardless of motivation, a program that facilitates underage drinking would currently be illegal. In order to make such a program permissible, Dartmouth would have to change state law. The College would presumably use its political clout to have such legislation introduced into the New Hampshire House of Representatives. If the House , Senate, and Governor approved, state law would be amended to forbid the consumption and purchase of alcohol to those under twenty-one, with the exception of Dartmouth students who have completed the AlcoholEdu course. Should federal politicians take notice of this absurd situation, the federal transportation grants that New Hampshire receives would be in jeopardy. These grants totaled $141.9 million in 2001.

Hanover Police Chief Nick Giaccone was not optimistic about AlcoholEdu. Upon hearing of the program's specifics, he said, 'Assuming that this is correct, no private institution would sell alcohol to someone who is underage.' He added, 'Unless the state recognizes this program, Hanover Police will not condone it.' Giaccone did, however, extol the educational virtues of AlcoholEdu. 'I do feel that the program would be beneficial in promoting responsible drinking even for those who are underage and choose to break the law.'

Chief Aidan Moore of the New Hampshire State Liquor Commission could not fathom a program such as Dr. Turco envisions. Despite repeated questioning as to the implementation of AlcoholEdu and its ramifications, he responded only that, 'It is not legal for a person under twenty-one years of age to purchase, consume, or possess alcohol. A program [that] made this possible would not be lawful.' He finally added that, 'If a component of this program authorizes or entitles minors to consume alcohol once they have completed the course, then that program is flawed. It may leave one with the impression that one can be under twenty-one, consume alcohol responsibly, and that's the end of it. That's not the end of it. As I said, it is against the law for a minor to possess alcohol. It would seem that if this is the programmatic goal, then it is inconsistent with state law, and [the Liquor Commission] would have a problem with it.'

Suppose that, in a political miracle, New Hampshire state law is changed to accommodate Dr. Turco's version of AlcoholEdu. What are the merits of the program? There are few.

The College would argue that many students will drink underage regardless of law and College policy. The AlcoholEdu program will teach them not to drink abusively, and then reward them for such expected behaviour with permission to drink responsibly. But will a three hour internet course change students' attitudes towards drinking? The drinking culture at Dartmouth is rooted in something far deeper than mere lack of education. For the few potential binge drinkers that AlcoholEdu deters, it will create a mob of thirsty freshmen lining up at Stinson's with permit cards in hand. Students given permission to drink may soon lapse into dependence, which will only be remedied after the fact, when they receive a violation, and their permit is voided.

Dr. Turco's envisioned program will give a number of freshmen easy access to alcohol. In so doing, it may flood the campus with hard liquor, which can otherwise be difficult to obtain. It is not hard to imagine a student completing the course, and then turning around to ask his friends what sorts of booze they would like him to buy for them.

There are a myriad of problems inherent to the program that Dr. Turco advocates. What difficulties does this present for the police in preventing underage drinking in town? How easy is it to forge a permit card? What issues would arise in transporting alcohol legally purchased by a minor to other towns, or other states? How would parents feel about a college that facilitated underage drinking? How can Dartmouth denounce privilege when it would, for no good reason, confer upon its own unprecedented advantage?

It would be wise for the College to think before revealing that it has considered such impossible and foolish designs.

AlcoholEdu: Above the Law

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