[gocard14]

This is purely an a** covering move by the university that IMO reduces student safety. As a former dorm staffer, we had an open door policy where residents knew that we weren't there to police them. It was requested that residents leave their doors open when drinking so that people would know if they were having too much. While we certainly had problems with people drinking too much, most of these cases were identified relatively early and managed appropriately, with 1-2 going to the ER.

As everyone else has noted, banning certain forms of alcohol will only drive it behind closed doors and make people less likely to come forward to get help if a friend is in trouble. I can understand the idea behind it. While you can get too drunk on anything, it is tougher (though certainly not impossible) to get to life threatening levels on 4% keystone light. However a rule like this is completely unenforcable, and thus is unlikely to actually reduce hard alcohol consumption, and may promote more binge drinking behavior, where students take multiple shots quickly behind closed doors to avoid being caught.

The only real benefit to this move comes from the University legal department. In the prior situation, if a student died of alcohol poisoning it wouldn't be too hard to point to the university's policy as tacit condoning of drinking, even if it created a safer environment. 

[gocard14]

This is purely an a** covering move by the university that IMO reduces student safety. As a former dorm staffer, we had an open door policy where residents knew that we weren't there to police them. It was requested that residents leave their doors open when drinking so that people would know if they were having too much. While we certainly had problems with people drinking too much, most of these cases were identified relatively early and managed appropriately, with 1-2 going to the ER.

As everyone else has noted, banning certain forms of alcohol will only drive it behind closed doors and make people less likely to come forward to get help if a friend is in trouble. I can understand the idea behind it. While you can get too drunk on anything, it is tougher (though certainly not impossible) to get to life threatening levels on 4% keystone light. However a rule like this is completely unenforcable, and thus is unlikely to actually reduce hard alcohol consumption, and may promote more binge drinking behavior, where students take multiple shots quickly behind closed doors to avoid being caught.

The only real benefit to this move comes from the University legal department. In the prior situation, if a student died of alcohol poisoning it wouldn't be too hard to point to the university's policy as tacit condoning of drinking, even if it created a safer environment.