Yes – Eliza Gkritski
Dude, what the hell happened last night?”. We’ve all said this one too many times. We’ve all been tipsy, drunk, or in some state of inebriation that we’ve lost consciousness. Even if only partly.
Despite its social acceptance alcohol remains a drug, and a most powerful one, and maybe a fine, such as the one imposed by Lancaster University, is the right way to restrain it. The problem doesn’t lie in these (hopefully) isolated incidents, but in the culture surrounding drinking.
We spend a ridiculously big part of our days talking about when we will next get drunk, or what we did whilst drunk. Making “nights we won’t remember”, as Ke$ha eloquently put it, is our definition of an evening well spent. I really can’t help but wonder exactly how healthy this drinking culture is. How healthy is relating pleasure to a loss of self and awareness?
Maybe alcohol is just a way to let loose, one would argue, but in my experience it’s not. That would be the equivalent of having a couple glasses of wine around dinner with your friends. But when we’re heading out to town, after pre-drinks where we played “games” to get drunk as fast as possible, we are not loose, we are out of control. I’m not saying that our brains turn off, rather that our judgement is severely impaired, and in a university that is a major paradox.
We are intelligent young adults who should be able to make conversation without being hideously drunk. Granted, a few drinks will make you more outgoing, but reinforcing this idea hinders us whilst sober; we feel like something is missing.
A place which is supposed to promote education and dialogue contradicts its mission when allowing behaviour that implies that alcohol is the fuel of conversation and leads to a distortion of our judgement.
So, is a fine an effective measure against drunkenness? Probably not; not all drunk students will be caught, not all will be fined. But that is beside the point. This rule isn’t an attempt to hurt the finances of the drinkers. Neither is it put forth by a conviction that it will end alcohol consumption. It is, as a politician would phrase it, a message. A message that it is not OK to be wasted on campus.
The university would be taking a stance against a habit that is harming us, both physically and mentally. It may not be effective, but there is only so much to be done given the limited jurisdiction and setting an example is good enough.
No – Helena Horton
As students, we do suffer some grave hardships; massive fees, having to read books with a hangover, STIs and 9am lectures.The only good thing about being a student is being able to get ridiculously drunk and fuck about, and apparently the evil people at University Administration want to take that away from us as well. At risk of sounding like a spoiled brat; it’s not fair!
The whole point of a union bar is to get us wasted cheaply so that we only spend marginally less than our grocery budget on one night. Fining people for being drunk in a Union bar is like fining people in a Philosophy lecture for being pretentious; it is silly and will frankly move students to get bevved elsewhere, in town, where they are further from security services when they fall over in their own vomit or mortally injure someone for scamming on their significant other. Taking away the simple pleasure of vomiting in the lake and staggering around campus in drunken bliss is simply cruel.
The University are very happy to treat us as promising young adults at graduation and in their prospectuses but when it comes to the crunch they act like aggrieved schoolteachers berating year 11s for downing Strongbow and getting with each other. Apparently it’s for student safety and wellbeing, but stripping us of £250 of our loan will not help our wellbeing as we will not be able to afford food. Then we will die. Do they want the deaths of students on their hands? I thought not.
OK, maybe I am getting a bit extreme now; this is the mindset of a student imagining facing the prospect of not being able to get drunk without financial penalty. It is my one vice in a sad world of essays, unrequited love and inevitable unemployment in the future which is ever creeping closer. I would go mad without being able to let my hair down once in a while (or twice in a week) and many other students are in the same position. Drinking is a way of keeping us quiet; imagine how much we would moan if we weren’t crippled by hangovers half the time. Give us our alcohol and we won’t give you grief for your incompetence.
To be honest, extortionate club prices and drinks bought for people who are going to sleep with you anyway are financial penalty enough for drunkenness. The hangovers and regrets brought on after a night on the lash aren’t enough to stop us drinking, so does the University really expect the prospect of financial penalty to put us off?