Crackdown

Police, students must help stop unsafe, immature drinking

It's easy for a group of students to make the case that alcohol laws are too strict, that everyone should just take a chill pill over this student drinking issue. After all, this is Penn State, and drinking is considered as much a staple of college life as books.

But it's a lot harder to transcend that obvious mind-set and look at the situation like an adult. You know, the kind of person each of us is supposed to be by the time we graduate.

Nevertheless, we're going to try to take an "adult" approach to a problem that is not being solved.

Following University student Leigh Anne Prevatte's recent tragic fall from the window of an apartment building, students are doing little to make the situation better or safer.

With a reported blood alcohol level of .32 -- more than three times the legal level of intoxication -- Prevatte leaned out a window at Alexander Court, 309 E. Beaver Ave., and fell to her death.

Now three people are being charged with furnishing alcohol to a minor, an offense which could land them up to one year in jail and a fine of at least $1,000.

What does this mean for others? Was the State College Police Department merely setting an example, acting under the attention of the media in a way it otherwise would not? Or are police finally working to rid the town of a problem it has endured for so long?

Perhaps these charges will mean nothing to anyone but the students involved. Perhaps the police did make their decision in the light of the media's bulbs.

Whatever the intent, the police department has sent a message it can't retract now -- namely, that it will not tolerate underage drinking.

But even better, it should not tolerate immature drinking, which is the real problem at the University.

Immature drinking does not stop itself, it does not stop its friends, it does not look where it is going and it does not think ahead.

Students should cut their friends off before they are slurring their words. They should stop their friends before they are carrying them home.

And they should stop themselves before they aren't able to help their friends at all.

But students alone will not solve the problem. The police department has to help, through much stricter enforcement and extra staff on weekend nights.

Police have to take the initiative to crack down every chance they can, to prevent students from hurting themselves any more. If they really don't know where to start, let us suggest a stroll down Beaver Avenue any Friday or Saturday night.

Only when the University community finds freedom from unsafe, immature drinking will the weekend really be a time to celebrate.