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11/13/2003: Criminally Absurd

Stiffer and Stiffer
from The Valley News

"After reading about laws prohibiting "possession by consumption," it's hard not to wonder if society really believes that college students and young adults should face arrest for having a beer or two."


In some ways, it's a silly question, because the answer has been answered affirmatively by New Hampshire legislators, who passed a law that took effect at the beginning of this year, and Vermont lawmakers, who put a similar law on the books that was implemented in 1999. Under those laws, police have the power to arrest and ticket young people who show the effects of having consumed alcohol. Violators need not be caught with a bottle in their hand; having alcohol on the breath, or altered speech or appearance can be enough to gain a conviction.

We're not talking about how to handle young adults who are transparently inebriated, who get behind the wheel of a car while under the influence, or who become disorderly after drinking alcohol. There are already laws on the books to deal with such behavior. Numerous laws also exist to punish those who make it possible for underage people to gain access to alcohol -- bars and stores that sell to them, surrogates who buy for them and even manufacturers of false identification.

But what threat is posed by a college student who has a social drink or two, goes out in public and has the misfortune of getting close enough to a police officer to offer incriminating evidence? A Sunday Valley News story cites the example of Andrea Shute, a 20-year-old Dartmouth student who was arrested after attending the annual homecoming bonfire last month. Her crime? She followed a friend who had fallen during the celebration and had been ushered to safety by some of the police officers working. One of the officers asked Shute if she had been drinking, and she acknowledged that she had had a couple of drinks. "I wasn't being disruptive to the public," she told reporter Alex Hanson.

Didn't matter. Shute ended up paying out $305 and had to enroll in a diversion program.

Diversion from what? Doing what many, many college students have done before her and will continue to do after her, regardless of how many laws are on the books? Did legislators really think it was a good idea to create a law that would allow for the arrest of a person who traveled to Quebec, where the drinking age is 18, and returned to the United States with some alcohol still in their system? Did they feel comfortable providing police a pretext for questioning just about any young adult who's out on the streets? Did they think it was a good idea not to allow the law to distinguish between college students, who are treated as adults in most other ways, and younger drinkers?

Although this society has been on a crusade for some time to make it increasingly difficult for young people to get alcohol and punish those who do, there is little evidence that the zero-tolerance approach is working. If anything, the effort appears to be increasing the allure of alcohol and inducing young adults to act like the irresponsible kids they're assumed to be. It's time to go in the opposite direction -- stop pretending that alcohol isn't consumed, can't be consumed responsibly and, for that matter, can't be consumed by young people who are assumed capable of acting like responsible adults in every other way. Society could still reserve the right to crack down in cases where young adults become a danger to themselves or to others -- a genuine danger, that is.