Changed alcohol policy leads to more TEMS use

The number of alcohol-related calls to Tufts Emergency Medical Services (TEMS) jumped by a significant percentage last semester when compared to data from the previous year.

The University's new alcohol policy may be partially responsible for the increase.

In September, Tufts administration officials decided that students who called TEMS for an emergency that involved a first violation of the alcohol policy would not be place on Probation Level I, but would still be written up in a report filed with the Office of Residential Life & Learning (ResLife).

TEMS reported 51 patients for alcohol intoxication in the 2003-04 school year-to-date. In contrast, the entire 2002-03 academic year only saw 37 patients.

"We have heard a lot of positive feedback about the change for the first offense and more people are calling TEMS because of the non-disciplinary response," Dean of Judicial Affairs Victoria Carter said.

This non-disciplinary first-offense policy was revised "to take the disciplinary sting out of first offenses" so that more students would not hesitate to call for help, Dean of Students Bruce Reitman said in December.

Alcohol-related TEMS calls from freshmen increased from 16 last year to 24 this year. The sophomore class made 11 TEMS calls this year, while last year's sophomores only accounted for 5 of the calls in 2002-03. Eleven alcohol-related incidents to which TEMS responded are classified as "unknown," because the students in question did not report which class they were in.

Senior Kate Anderson said the old policy made it hard for students to decide when to call TEMS. Under the old policy, she said, "if there was someone really in trouble, you called. But there was always that line you weren't sure you wanted to cross especially if it meant they could get in trouble."

The former first-offense policy dictated that if a student was found illegally consuming alcohol, he or she ran the risk of being placed on Probation I. Though the student's parents would not be called and the offense would not be written up on his or her permanent record, the old policy did stipulate that the student would be ineligible to join a fraternity or sorority, become a Residential Assistant (RA), or hold various student leadership positions.

First time violators now receive a letter from Director of Drug and Alcohol Education Margot Abels that asks them to complete an online health course from mystudentbody.com. Alternatively, students can choose to meet with a counselor at the Tufts Alcohol and Health Education Center or with Carter.

Failure to comply with one of these options within two weeks of receiving the letter will result in a referral to the Judicial Affairs Office, which then places the student on Probation I.

Of this year's estimated 150 first-offenders, 55 have opted to take the judicial course offered by mystudentbody.com this past semester, in addition to the 400 to 500 first-years who completed it non-judicially, according to Abels. All freshmen are required to take the online course, but not all of them have.

When asked if she thought the online course is an effective way to impress upon students the dangers of alcohol abuse, Abels said, "I don't want people to think of using [the course] so punitively -- I'd like them to learn. If one in 100 realizes, it's a win [because] it only takes one death to rock this campus."

Sophomore John Shea applauded this new approach to alcohol abuse on a college campus like Tufts. "It's not really very realistic to think that drinking can be eliminated," he said. "I think [the new policy] is a great improvement because it concentrates on the safety of the students."

Carter agrees with Shea's assessment. "It is unrealistic to establish a goal of eliminating drinking on campus -- or anywhere else," she said. "While we can't ignore the Massachusetts state laws about drinking, our primary goal is to address abuse."

The MIT campus was hit hard in 1998 by an alcohol-related death when current University president Larry Bacow was chancellor there. A student died of alcohol poisoning after attending a party at a fraternity house. Since then MIT has implemented a procedure where the student requesting medical treatment is not issued any sort of citation -- even if the person is under 21 -- as long as he or she has not done damage to any property or assaulted another person.

At Boston University (BU), there is no first-offense policy set in stone. "We treat every case as the individual case it is," BU spokesman Colin Riley said.

Riley commended Tufts for requiring its first-year students to complete the online health course but said that BU was not considering such an option. For now, freshmen at BU "hear at their orientation what we expect of them, and consequences," Riley said. "We are explicit. For example, if a roommate passively participates [in alcohol abuse] -- even if he or she wasn't drinking -- he or she can also face consequences."

The freshman class has made the most calls to TEMS; 24 over the past semester. The calls constitute a majority over every other undergraduate class.

Freshmen drink heavily when they get to college, Abels said, because "they are away from home, living in dorms with other kids their age. This, in addition to all the demands of college [coursework] and socializing with older [peers], leads to an increased interest in alcohol at parties."

Freshman Sarah Freuden said the rise in freshman alcohol abuse numbers is due to the closed fraternities last semester, not because freshmen have discovered their newfound freedom. "I think that since last semester, [because many of the fraternities were on probation], there wasn't much to do. People are more likely to drink excessively when they're sitting around bored in their rooms."

This hypothesis will be tested this semester as Delta Upsilon (DU) and Delta Tau Delta (DTD), two of the fraternities on probation during the fall semester, have returned to the campus social scene.

Abels went to college when the drinking age in the United States was 18 -- the legal drinking age in the great majority of countries throughout the world. "I don't remember any friends ever going to the hospital [for alcohol intoxication]," she said.

Carter agreed that "it was a lot easier to educate about the responsible use of alcohol when the legal age was 18."

As for drug abuse at the University, there are no official figures. Abels said, however, that there are certainly a "critical number" of Tufts students who have been or still are drug addicts. "We know people do it and people come to us for help but it really is harder to identify than alcohol abuse," she said.

On disciplinary action regarding first-offense drug abuse Carter said, "It depends upon the classification and amount of the substance found. Some amounts are considered trafficking and can result in arrests and/or disciplinary action. We respond to marijuana use in the same way as alcohol. Other drugs, like cocaine and crack, will result in more serious outcomes."

There are peer support groups of five to ten people that meet each week regularly to discuss recovery for substance abuse, Abels said. If a student is interested in joining one of these groups he or she should contact Elizabeth Moore, a counselor at the Health Education Center.

"We really are here to help," Abels said.