INTRODUCTION
Ethics is usually associated with doing what is morally right and avoiding what is morally wrong. For example, the commandment you should not lie is an ethical rule that is at times hard to obey for safety and other reasons. For example if a man asks you where your mother is because he wants to rob her, the normal person would like by saying she has not been around for the last ten years. This is what we call white lies. The following paragraphs explain the ethical issues of drinking.
BODY
The Article Binge Drinking and Drug Abuse on Campus Get Worse by By Sarah Baldauf dated March 26, 2007 stated that “College administrators have been much more focused lately on underage drinking–but they appear to be losing the battle. A report issued today by Columbia University’s National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, known as CASA, reveals that nearly half of college students binge drink–that’s four drinks in a row for women and five drinks in a row for men–or use illegal drugs, and a growing number are bingeing more frequently. Meantime, the rate of prescription drug abuse is surging.”
Binge drinking and substance abuse violates the norms of ethics. Researchers have studied a set of national data and surveyed two thousand full time students and an estimated four hundred college representatives and administrators on the their school policies pertaining to alcohol and substance abuse. Their findings done between the year 1993 to 2005 glaringly show that forty percent of the students do indeed engage in binge drinking.
Furthermore, of the two thousand students interviewed, the number of use who binge three or four times a week have shown a increase of sixteen percent from the year 1993 to the year 2005 which represents 3,800,000 students. The students’ favorite substances that were abused included the prescription opioids namely Vicodin, OxyContin, Percocet. In addition, others would prefer stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall as well as the daily use of marijuana which had increased by two hundred percent from 1993 to 2005.
In Joseph Califano Jr. who is the chairman and president of CASA stated that “The most disturbing piece to me is the tremendous increase in the intensity of substance abuse and the intensity of drinking in these college students,”. He was the former United States health secretary under the President Jimmy Carter Administration. The report further states that twenty three percent of full time college students are illegal substance dependents and users. This represents 1,800,000 students around the state.
Additionally, another source states that college student drinking is the number 1 health related problem in college campuses across the nation. Clearly, presidents of many colleges and universities show that alcohol abuse is their number 1 concern. Admittedly, the abuse of alcohol has increase the number problems that college students face such as health problems, poor school grade ratings, damage to property, violence, institutional disciplinary problems, problems with the law and even death in worst case scenarios. In fact, binge continues with impunity in many colleges and universities(Parry, 2005).
Evidently, when a person is high on drugs, his or her drive to study more and to get an A plus begins to take the back seat for the car’s front seat will seat social acceptance and freedom to do what the college student wants. This freedom sometimes involves damage to property, causing physical injury or in some instances, death to another person. Ethics states that freedom is okay if such freedom does not violate the freedoms of others. For example, a person has the freedom to borrow his classmate’s book. However, the classmate also has the freedom to refuse lending his or her book to an obnoxious classmate.
Furthermore, banned substance and binge alcohol drinking abuse will cause the lose of discerning what is good or evil. A person who needs another drug injection in order to satiate his or her body’s craving for the banned drugs must prioritize buying them. But to get such drugs, money must be use to pay for it. Since most drug dependents have to jobs, they resort to stealing money to fill this money need. And, other students divert their money that had been allocated to pay the college tuition fees, books and other materials to buying the banned drugs and alcohol.
And students who are high on drugs and alcohol forget their basic hygiene and grooming regiments. We can easily identify a drug user by the way he or she walks, he or she talks. We can also identify person high on drugs just by looking at their eyes. We can also identify an alcohol dependent person by the smell of his or her breath. Also, a drunk person easily gets mad at everyone.
As a counter argument, Some college students feel that alcohol abuse and substance abuse symbolizes freedom. This freedom equates to increased sociability and fun and also tension reduction. Our currently complex and MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS society imposes that excessive drinking is a normal part of social life. For, drinking is that magical ingredient need for a complete entry to adult freedom. In fact, many students admit that binge drinking in college is the ticket to freedom(Logue,2004).
Clearly, a person who has drunk a bottle or two of beer will have that added power to tell the girl of his dreams how much he loves and cares for her. Also, if the girl of his desire is an avid beer enthusiast, then a man would better drink beer with her in order to be included in her circle of friends. Everyone knows that a shot of a beer bottle or two will give that feeling of success so that a student can successfully describe in class the report assigned to him or her that day.
Clinically, doctors have proven state drinking is good for the health. Many doctors have openly admitted that downing a beer bottle or two a day is good for the heart. Also, there is popular saying that goes, it is not what goes into a person that can hurt him but it is what comes out of a person that could endanger his or her body. In fact, drinking is recommended for snow cities of the world. The alcohol will help increase the body temperature to combat the body temperature lowering effects of the snow outside the school and home environment.
In terms of love, Alcohol is that magic ingredient of love. There are many persons who cannot express orally their love for another person because of shyness or fear of being rejected. To counter this scenario, the person downs two beers or more in order to get that added boost of energy so that he can decrease to the maximum level the distance between him and his object of love desire. Also, in birthday parties and other special occasion, it is but normal to offer alcohol to the guests. A person in love will interpret ethics as doing anything in order to win the heart of his apple of the eye even to the point of drinking two or beers. As a result, since a person who is drunk is literally better in bed than a person who is sober.
In all practicality, a person who cannot afford to take a third or fourth visit to his or her doctor could just buy the prescribed drug without the prescription. His reason could be since the doctor had prescribed that he use the medicine for one month for the symptoms of the sickness that he feels in his body such as unbearable pain from cancer, he continues to buy the medicine because he feels that the doctor will prescribe the same prohibited drugs if he returns to the doctor for that third, fourth or even until the tenth visit. This way, he feels that he can save on doctor consultation visit costs and use the savings to buy the drugs.
CONCLUSION
Binge drinking and substance abuse violates the norms of ethics. The norm or what is morally right is not to drink while inside the school premises. Research findings done between the year 1993 to 2005 glaringly show that forty percent of the students do indeed engage in binge drinking. Additionally, college and university presidents admit publicly that college student drinking is the number 1 health related problem in college campuses across the nation.
Furthermore, banned substance and binge alcohol drinking abuse will cause the lose of discerning what is good or evil. Evidently, when a person is high on drugs, his or her drive to study more and to get an A plus begins to take the back seat for the car’s front seat will seat social acceptance and freedom to do what the college student wants. This freedom sometimes involves damage to property, causing physical injury or in some instances, death to another person.
And, some students who are high on drugs and alcohol forget their basic hygiene and grooming regiments. We can easily identify a drug user by the way he or she walks, he or she talks.
To sum it all up, a person who is on a drugged estate cannot think logically what to do in a given situation and this has the same effect on a person who is drunk. In fact a person should not drive while drinking. A person who has a drug problem cannot reason internally whether to go to school today or just stay at home and inject himself of the banned drug because he or she feels that with the drug and the alcohol she or he feels at ease, happy or accomplished.
As a counter argument, Some college students feel that alcohol abuse and substance abuse symbolizes freedom. This freedom equates to increased sociability and fun and also tension reduction. Clearly, a person who has drunk a bottle or two of beer will have that added power to tell the girl of his dreams how much he loves and cares for her. Clinically, doctors have proven state drinking is good for the health. Many doctors have openly admitted that downing a beer bottle or two a day is good for the heart.
In terms of love, Alcohol is that magic ingredient of love. There are many persons who cannot express orally their love for another person because of shyness or fear of being rejected. In all practicality, a person who cannot afford to take a third or fourth visit to his or her doctor could just buy the prescribed drug without the prescription. The ethical issue analysis above shows that it is correct to ban binge drinking and substance abuse for the health and well-being of the students because the reasons for the banning are better than the reasons for allowing alcohol binging and substance abuse.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Logue, A., The Psychology of Eating and Drinking, Brunner-Routledge, New York. Publication, 2004
- Parry, D., Shinew, K., Examining College Students’ Participation in the Leisure Pursuits of Drinking and Illegal Drug Use, Journal of Leisure Research, Volume: 37. Issue: 3, 2005
- US News & World Reports <http://www.usnews.com/usnews/health/articles/070316/16health.college.htm>
- Univ of Michigan <http://www.umich.edu/~newsinfo/BG/drinkrep.html>
