David McBride, the director of Student Health Services, said that for some college students the words “Alcohol Task Force” carry a negative connotation.
“Some people, I have discovered, think it’s a dirty word. It’s not a dirty word,” McBride said.
Boston University officials met with students on Thursday in the College of Arts and Sciences to discuss policies on alcohol consumption, in light of National Alcohol Awareness Week.
The meeting, held by Students for Sensible Drug Policy at BU, included representatives from BU’s Alcohol Task Force, Student Health Services, the School of Public Health and BUPD. The SSDP is an international network that aims to reform drug and alcohol policies on campus and throughout the world, according to its website.
The Alcohol Task Force, an organization that formed six years ago, aims to keep members of the BU community safe, McBride said. “Many students do choose to use alcohol in a way that doesn’t resolve in good outcomes.”
McBride said that he has seen an increasing number of students being transported to the hospital over the past couple of years.
“[First-years] are the group who get most frequently transported the hospital, most often within the first couple of weeks of school,” he said.
Though the number of transports is on the rise, McBride said that students need to move past the idea that anyone who is the least bit intoxicated is swept away in an ambulance.
“I hear the word on the street is, if you are the slightest bit intoxicated, you are transported to the hospital,” McBride said. “But it’s not like [the people transported] are blowing a .150. The BAC’s of [those who are transported] are really quite frightening. They’re quite high.”
William DeJong, a professor of public health, said that students have been conditioned by their environment – from movies such as “Animal House” to shot glasses sold in book stores – to believe that heavy drinking is a common pastime in college.
“It’s very easy to believe, coming to campus, that [heavy drinking] is the norm,” McBride said.
BUPD Sergeant Larry Cuzzi said that there’s a stigma among some students that the police are out there trying to spoil their good time.
“We’re out there not to ruin everybody’s night, but to make sure that the rules and regulations and the laws are in compliance and that everybody out there is safe,” Cuzzi said.
“I would say [BU’s alcohol policy] has been pretty effective…but it’s still disheartening to hear stories of students getting taken away in ambulances every weekend,” said Blyss Buitrago, a junior in CAS.
BU students are often involved in heavy drinking, along with fighting, domestic violence and other crimes BUPD encounters, said Captain Robert Molloy.
“Boston University students are involved in a lot of the issues that go on out there,” Molloy said.
Aside from the aid of the Boston police, BUPD and university officials, McBride said that he would like to see more BU students coming together to keep one another safe from those dangers.
“I would love to see students thinking together how to keep one another safe,” McBride said. “How do you as a student community figure out how to keep one another safe?”