WILD…or Mild?
During my time here at Washington University I have witnessed an interesting phenomenon. As time has marched on, what is supposed to be a bastion of free thinking and liberal spirits has become more restrictive and less tolerant. During my freshman year I listened to the laments of the senior class: “Back in my day they used to give away free beer at WILD!” or “When I was a freshman I used a 35 year old woman’s driver’s license as a fake ID and I was able to purchase beer with my points at the Rat.” Much like a good wine or the leftovers in your fridge, most stories tend to mature and ripen with age. One thing that is true, however, is that the University has noticeably tightened the thumbscrews of authority upon us while we have been sleeping/passed out.
I’m not sure what happened, but not many other people out there seem to be too outraged. One of the first articles I wrote for Student Life was an op-ed that I sent in after fall WILD my freshman year. For those of you who do know what happened, the administration/Team 31/the Ugly Bunny decided that it would be un-patriotic to have kegs at WILD that fall due to the terrorist attacks which occurred on September 11, 2001. In my humble opinion, the moment that Americans decide that beer is un-patriotic is the moment that the alcohol-disdaining Islamic extremist terrorists have won.
Needless to say, everyone still got drunk on WILD, but WILD itself was pretty much a bust. In my article I wrote that “the ‘prohibition’ of kegs at that fall’s WILD was the warning shot fired across the bow of the ship of state of the student body.” Unless students made their position clear, kegs would eventually be completely banned from WILD. Lo and behold, kegs were quietly and permanently banned from WILD. Also, while I was out of the country my pickup truck was sold, my dog died, and the IRS tried to seize my family’s farm. While I doubt the University was behind this, the coincidence is too much to brush off.
The administration had cited “statistics” which proved that kegs at WILD were not as popular as before and that no one would miss them anyway. What they failed to tell you was that they had made obtaining a permit for a keg worse than registering your car at the Department of Motor Vehicles. The DMV and Soviet Central Planning could take some lessons from the University: if you make it hard enough, people will eventually give up and stop bothering you. Congrats, the policy worked.
Last week EST came by and spoke to my fraternity about the dangers of alcohol. They talked about how much alcohol your liver can process and how quickly this happens. They showed us what happens if we “pre-party” too quickly and do too many shots of hard alcohol. Alcohol is not a time-release drug, unlike Ecstasy and other delightful pills. The point is, you can’t drink enough before WILD to keep a buzz going during the entire concert. However, thanks to the STASI-esque security guards and miles and miles of red tape, it is damn near impossible to drink during WILD. The only alternative, or so a lot of people think, is to try and drink as much as possible and hope for the best. Unfortunately, the worst possible outcome has become the norm.
The EST rep told us that the numbers show that more students have turned to hard alcohol to replace the ubiquitous beer that used to flow like water on campus. People are drinking more and are becoming sicker in increasing numbers. Instead of going to the Rat on Wednesday night (or was it Thursday?), that party has been shut down. People who aren’t 21 and can’t buy lots of beer have turned to drinking vodka straight, and the health consequences have become blatantly obvious.
If the administration actually believed itself when it said “if you behave like adults we will treat you like adults,” then they would relax their alcohol policies a tiny bit. I’m not saying you should give it away, but it wouldn’t hurt to scrutinize us a bit less. If you honestly care about students’ health, maybe its time to analyze the causes behind the increasing alcohol overdoses. And to everyone out there, take care of yourself and your friends. You never know if this WILD is going to be your last.
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