Why college students should not be allowed to drink on campus.

Imagine for a moment that you walk into work carrying a long island ice tea and your boss comes up to you and ask you why you are drinking on the job?  "But I'm over 21, I'm allowed to drink".  To ask why college students shouldn't be allowed to drink on campus is the same as asking why an employee can not drink while he is at work as a college student is there to learn. You are not there to drink and party, you are there to learn and/or work. 

Students are in college to learn and live and to prepare them for the real world, but not to drink.  This is not saying they cannot drink if they are over 21, this is to say if they are on campus such as living or working or attending a function regardless of their age, they should not be drinking.  

Some might argue that drinking or not drinking should be the students right to choose and is that not about learning about the real world?  Yes and no, Yes, an above age person should be able to decide if they want to drink or not drink but no, also learning about the real world is learning that one has to follow rules, whether they like or agree with them or not and one rule should be not drinking on campus. You cannot drink at a court house, you cannot drink at a drink at a Mormon Temple (Mormon's do not believe in drinking). People do not question these rules.  How are colleges any different? They are in a sense a place of business.

The dangers of allowing drinking out way the 'freedom' of allowing an above age college student there to decide to drink or not drink on campus. 

Hingson et. al 2009 (found on college drinking prevention.gov) sites that 1,825 college students between the ages of 18 and 24 die from alcohol-related unintentional injuries, including motor vehicle crashed.

Collegedrinkingprevention.org also sites, hingson et al. 2002, 2009. in assaults of 696,000 students by another student that has been drinking, and 97,000 students that have been the victim of a alcohol related sexual assault or rape.  

Is not the safely of our college students important enough to us that we need to make this decision?

collegedrinkingprevention.org (2012)