Don’t you think students are just going to drink, no matter what you do?

• Our goal is not to abolish all alcohol from college campuses. Rather, we are trying to help students make better decisions, to learn to use alcohol in a responsible manner if they do chose to drink, and to offer a variety of other options if they chose not to drink.
• Additionally, we cannot expect change to occur on an "all or nothing" basis. Positive cultural change around certain seemingly permanent unhealthy behaviors happens gradually. Look at smoking: thirty or even twenty years ago, no one would have predicted how much smoking would be out of favor among the general public.
• Although many policies do not acheive 100% reduction in unhealhty behaviors, several policies have been able to achieve measurable beneficial behavioral changes:
1. In several states, Administrative License Revocation (ALR) law was enacted, whereby police revoke a driver’s license for refusing a breathalizer or for failing it. These states have witnessed an approximate 10% reduction in alcohol-related road fatalities.
2. Age 21 Law: the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that since 1975, this piece of legislation has prevented over 17,000 traffic deaths among the underage population.
3. .08% BAC: The first five states to adopt this legal cut-off for drunk drivers witnessed a 16% decline in proportion of fatal crashes involving fatally injured drivers with BAC of .08 and higher, and 18% reduction in fatal crashes with drivers with a BAC of .15% and higher.
4. Zero tolerance law (BAC limit for under-21 year old drivers between 0.00% and 0.02%): States adopting this law experienced a 20% greater decline in proportion of single-vehicle, nighttime fatal crashes among 15- to 20-year old drivers.

The effectiveness of these policies demonstrates that environmental strategies (in this case, policy change and enforcement) can effect change. No, we won’t get everybody in our efforts, but we can make a measurable effect on many others.