Drinking is no laughing matter

Thursday, January 29, 1998

Thursday, January 29, 1998

Drinking is no laughing matter

DRINKING: VanderZanden's attempt at satire overlooks implications involving excess alcoholic consumption

By Evan Nisonson

I'm writing in response to a column published in the Arts & Entertainment section of The Bruin (Jan. 20, 1998), titled, "Drinking: the way to a truly enlightening college career."

In giving the author, Ms. VanderZanden the benefit of the doubt in attempting to construct clever satire aimed at provoking, I am nonetheless disturbed by her article and its cavalier approach to alcohol consumption.

Please do not accuse me of being prudish. I cannot claim that as an undergrad I maintained sobriety. Yet, when drinking socially, I was very much aware of the overall consequences, of which my GPA and a morning hangover were only a few.

Unfortunately, Ms. VanderZanden misses this point entirely. Proclaiming that the road to a high GPA is through alcoholic excess, even if done in the name of satire, evidences both a lack of journalistic responsibility and scientific research on her part. This pronouncement is speculative and uninformed. And while I'm not suggesting that she isn't entitled to her opinion, I am saying that in circulating her opinions at a university attended by more than 30,000 students (most of whom are under the legal drinking age) who are susceptible to the suggestions of peers, Ms. VanderZanden needs to exercise a greater understanding of her role as a journalist.

Her implication that she was following in the footsteps of other famous writers who imbibed as they scribbled was a part of the article that I found the least offensive if only for its (hopefully) ironic effect. But even this is, in part, disturbing, for it remains ignorant of the shifting social mores and cultural self-awareness between then (the age of bohemian excess) and now. When Baudelaire examines the splendors of "alcohol," he is writing at a time and to an audience which is quite different from that of today. And when he took the responsibility - and the bottle - in his own hands engaging in what he called enlightenment and what we call substance abuse, he paid dearly for it.

Perhaps the problem lies in the fact that Ms. VanderZanden's article, if intended to be satire, is not quite sharp enough to pull it off. Satire, historically speaking, is used to underscore an issue of great seriousness (as in Swift's "A Modest Proposal") through, oftentimes, the depiction of outrageous or extreme situations. When performed well, it even succeeds in offering a solution in the criticism. When done poorly, however, the result is nothing more than blunt opinion sadly failing at provoking contemplation. And in this case, when failing, the attempt could also have severe repercussions.

And by repercussions, I do not mean potential damage to a high GPA. There are other consequences that Ms. VanderZanden's "joie d'ivre" fails to take into account:

* Alcohol use is the No. 1 drug problem among young people. (CSAP, 1996)

* Last year, 17,126 people were killed in crashes involving alcohol in the United States (roughly half the student population here at UCLA). (NHTSA, 1997)

* More than 40 percent of all 16-to-20-year-old deaths result from motor vehicle crashes. About half of these fatalities (38.9 percent) were in alcohol-related crashes. (NHTSA, 1995)

* The younger the age of drinking onset, the greater the chance that an individual at some point in life will develop a clinically defined alcohol disorder. (NIAAA, 1998)

* Binge drinkers are two to five times as likely as other drinkers to engage in unplanned or unprotected sex, get injured, damage property, argue or fight (Harvard University, 1998)

These statistics are compelling, especially the last item, when given the sensitivity here at UCLA to both violence against women and the alarming spread of STDs. All statistics are cited from the MADD web site (www.madd.org), which I encourage you to visit.

I am writing to persuade The Bruin to re-examine the value it places on journalistic responsibility. You are editing a paper with a large circulation, and thus, a potentially large influence. Therefore, to publish is to promote the opinion of Ms. VanderZanden in an environment that is at particular risk to substance abuse and its all-too-real consequences. Ironically, Ms. VanderZanden's article appears four pages after a thumbs-up for "No Alcohol Ads Allowed" (p. 18). Clearly, The Bruin staff would prevent liquor companies from gaining access to the paper as a vehicle for promoting drinking for all the right reasons while allowing Ms. VanderZanden to promote her opinions on the same for all the wrong ones.

The publishing of her article by The Bruin, therefore, signals either a momentary misstep in judgement or a mistaken belief that it takes one hand to hold up the first amendment while toasting with a martini dry in the other, letting journalistic responsibility to a reading community lay unsupported. I trust it is the former.