Letters to the editor

Better safe than sorry with medical amnesty

To the Editor:

I would like to take this chance to respond to the pleasant and, oh, what's the word, completely delusional letter to the editor concerning the alcohol policy in the Oct. 25 issue. The author's reasons for not accepting a medical amnesty are perhaps the flimsiest arguments I have ever heard.

First, it states that if there was a medical amnesty program people would call the EMTs just so they wouldn't get written up. I'm sure that the program does not include a clause that says that anyone who has contact with the EMTs cannot be written up.

Students already in the process of getting written up would not be able to call the EMTs and be exempt from a write-up. The purpose of the plan is that people would call the EMTs if their friend was in danger of alcohol poisoning. Yes, amnesty would likely result in more calls to the EMTs, and yes, some of them would be unnecessary, but the point of the amnesty is better safe than sorry.

In the article, Dan Stepan, head EMT, stated that he would rather have someone play it safe than try to make that crucial judgment call on their own.

As for "waiting for more evidence," I would say it's right there: Stepan sighted 43 cases of off-duty calls to EMTs. That's 43 people that should have called the EMTs but didn't.

I can tell you something of my own personal experience; people drink the exact same as they did before. The new alcohol policy has just driven drinking more underground or off campus. But most importantly, it has made calling EMTs an even more difficult decision.

Someone's life should never be a difficult decision. I applaud EMTs Dan Stepan and Nick Pontrelli on finally stepping up and doing something for the safety of students, and I implore the school to take action.

Peter Kitchen

Political Science '10

Alcoholism is a disease, prohibition not answer

To the Editor:

In response to the author's article titled, "It's time to bring back prohibition," I would like to refute many of her statements. She seems to imply that alcohol use is something new, that instead of being made almost 9,000 years ago in China out of rice and honey, it is something only recently discovered. The effects of alcohol are widely known and widely documented; excessive alcohol, like many things, can be detrimental to your health.

First of all, alcoholism is a disease, something not to be bunched in with the run-of-the-mill caffeine addict, who, instead of sleeping enough on a regular basis, has become physically addicted to a stimulant. Second, not everyone who drinks becomes an alcoholic. In fact, the great majority of individuals do not become alcoholics.

The second point in the article is the recommendation that the government should control morality. Now without exposing my own morals for all to see, how exactly would government enact "strict preventative measures â?¦ to maintain a moral society?"

How is morality defined? Is the implication simply that drinking is immoral?

My point is simply this: If you make the government the morality police, where is the line drawn? Even more basic than that, how do you define morality?

Here is one point where our opinions overlap -- drunk driving is bad! Luckily, this has been well documented and is well regulated.

The simple truth is, drinking responsibly has been a human right for the last 9,000 years. It only becomes an issue when it is abused.

Prohibition was a failure, and would be a failure if enacted today. The 1920s and '30s gave birth to some of the most notorious organized crime figures in U.S. history.

When I open up my first beer tonight, I'll toast to the great freedom that our society entrusts us with. When I get ready to sleep, I'll offer a word of thanks for the great responsibility we are entrusted with.

Adam Lawrence

Undeclared Business '09

Waste of police time, money

To the Editor:

What the author of the prohibition article in last week's issue forgets is that not all of us have "a moral society with high living standards." You can never understand what some people have been through, what they continue to go through.

I'll take an artificial high over a natural low any day. Something else the author forgets is that alcohol prohibition was what gave us Al Capone and the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. We've tried prohibition. Now it's time to admit there might be another way.

Our police shouldn't arrest people because of their potential for crime. It's well past time to give drug users a chance to use their intoxicants of choice responsibly, so we can empower citizens with these millions of dollars instead of criminals and gangsters.

Jay Hunter

Pittsburgh, Pa.

DARE without analysis

To the Editor:

There is a very good reason for allowing only adults to vote. Children are not able to understand the nuances which convert many black and white situations into various shades of gray.

Read the naive article from the Oct. 25 opinion section on prohibition, wherein she calls for a return to alcohol prohibition. Her reasoning for this position comes straight out of a DARE class she took in grade seven: Drugs are bad, mkay? Alcohol is a drug. Therefore, alcohol is bad and will keep you from reaching your full potential, mkay?

She then applies her DARE-inspired critical thinking skills and derives, "Therefore, we must add alcohol to the list of banned substances we are currently failing to control."

She fails to see what is happening all around her with illegal drugs, she fails to heed the lessons of history regarding alcohol prohibition and she fails to use critical thinking skills to evaluate her position and the lessons she was taught in DARE. When she develops those skills she will be all grown up and ready to vote. Until then, she is a work in progress, though progress is obviously painfully slow.

Bruce Symington

Alberta, Canada

Prohibition punishes responsible citizens

To the Editor:

The author of the article titled "It's time to bring back prohibition" on Oct. 25 thinks America should restart alcohol prohibition?

Did she bump her head?

Why punish responsible citizens for the actions of irresponsible citizens?

Stan White

Dillon, Colo.