Alcohol

To the Editors of The Crimson:

I was disturbed to find in my second semester registration packet a letter entitled "Alcohol" which was sent to all students in Harvard College. I did not like the tone of the letter, nor do I like the Harvard administration's increasingly unreasonable stance on alcohol consumption at this school.

The letter would have done more good if it had been sent to junior high school health classes rather than to the thousands of 18 to 23-year-olds at Harvard. Dean fox and Dr. Wacker tell us that "alcohol is a drug," that "the view that drunkenness is a measure of maturity is misguided and dangerous," and that "potentially lethal drinking often occurs in college under peer pressure." Certainly the administration must think we are children, not citizens old enough to vote and pay taxes I think most students would agree with me when I say that students here are familiar with the dangers of alcohol abuse, just as we know about drug abuse and the dangers of cigarette smoking.

Not only does the letter contain already well-known information on the dangers of alcohol, but is seems to be advocating Prohibition, the Great Experiment which was officially pronounced a failure 51 years ago. The administration is "pleased to learn" that "the number of students who said they drank alcohol during the academic year" decreased from 95 percent to 91 percent The administration, then, seems to be pleased about total abstention from alcohol, which I think is an entirely different matter from the worthy goal of attempting to prevent alcohol abuse. The authors of the letter state they are concerned about the drunk driver, yet the administration prohibits the serving of alcohol at campus parties even to people of legal age. Increasingly, Harvard's social life is moving off campus to Cambridge bars, other colleges, finals clubs, and drunken drives to and from Kenmore Square. The deans seem to take great pride in making Harvard's campus the most boring in the Ivy League.

The Harvard faculty certainly does not abstain from the use of alcohol. By reading the "Alcohol" letter, are we supposed to assume that the faculty does abstain, or is it that they are responsible adults, unlike ourselves, who have earned the right to consume this socially accepted drug? Robert Henderson '84