I am writing in response to the opinion column (“‘U’ drinking surveys seem unbalanced,” SN 10/10) written by Tim Mosley. In this column, Mosley takes the stance of one “being persecuted for (his) drinking choices.” He asks the question “Who cares?” A lot of people do, Mosley. To best answer your questions, I would refer you to a letter published Monday in The New York Times by Henry Wechsler, the director of College Alcohol Studies at the Harvard School of Public Health.

“College drinking requires our attention because too many students down enough alcohol to create problems - vandalism, fights, injuries, driving while intoxicated and altercations with the police. Then there are the secondhand effects experienced by non-binging students, who are assaulted, whose property is vandalized, who are the victims of unwanted sexual advances or whose sleep and study time are interrupted.”

I would like to assure Mosley that no one is intent on seizing responsibility for actions or pounding any notions of less-than-worthy actions into any heads. The fact is that the statistics that say “25 percent of the student population (not 3 percent) drinks about 75 percent of the alcohol consumed” at MSU were obtained through careful surveys and data analysis.

As was noted in Mosley’s column, the statistics are quite alarming. As Wechshler so eloquently put it in concluding his letter, “Playing down the problem is just another example of denial.”

Damilola Walker
human biology
microbiology senior