The focus of this blog post, however, is not to participate in this debate so much as to step back from it and as two basic questions from a more global perspective: (1) Are there inherent risks associated with scare tactic approaches to "warning" individuals to not do something because it is risky and potentially harmful, and (2) have some earlier decisions made by prevention specialists and prevention researcher's diminished our credibility in the eyes of students to deliver reliable and therefore "to be listened to" information about alcohol and other drugs?
I suspect there may be a downside to efforts to emphasize the immediacy for responding to the alcoholic energy drink issue. The greater the urgency assigned to this issue, the more likelihood that these products will appeal to a certain minority of students who are risk takers. As Linda Lederman, Dean of Social Sciences at Arizona State university, has admonished regarding the use of “high-risk drinking” as an alternative to “binge drinking” because of the potential to appeal to these students, we may want to target audiences to which we appeal with this in mind. It may result in a desired effect to raise the alarm with administrators and student affairs professionals, but cause quite a different result if that same message is delivered to students. (To risk-taking behavior and its impact on substance use further, read Tom Workman’s essay on edgework and risk takers entitled, “To the edge and back again: Edgework and Collegiate Drug Use” in my monograph, Collegiate Drug Use: A New Look at and Old Issue (http://www.rowan.edu/casa/resources/documents/chapmanfinalfinalap.pdf).
Related to this cautionary word is the importance of considering how we wish to approach students with this information. As in so many things in our field, there is no “one size fits all” alert that will have the same impact on parents, administrators, students affairs pros and students. Remember, since we have all but acquiesced to accepting “binge drinking” as the term to describe 4+/5+ student drinking, we have lost credibility as purveyors of factual information in the eyes of some students.
In a recently published report from the Century Council—and yes, I know the CC is an arm of the distilled spirits council—students do not see this term as relevant or descriptive of their drinking – see http://bit.ly/bqZTbg Knowing this, we need to pay attention to: (1) What message about high-alcohol energy drinks do we wish to deliver to students and (2) who is it that we believe is best suited—and credible—to deliver this message? Remember the old adage, “what goes around, comes around”; it may be time to review our comfort as a field with the term “binge drinking” to describe how students drink. NOTE: Thanks Jim for not referring to 5+ drinks as “binge-drinking” in your missive J
Again, I do not attempt to “rain on the parade” and believe that social scientists, administrators in high education, and parents alike do need to address this issue as a unified entity. My caution is that we do so in such a way as to be consistent with sound prevention methodology, which has excluded "scare tactics" as a viable approach for almost 20-years..
What do you think?
Best regards,
Robert
The Four Loko scare is what Stanley Cohen, thirty eight years ago called a "moral panic" (also see Erich Goode on this). A "Reefer Madness" moment. Crack babies another example. Four Loko has about a cup of coffee's worth of caffeine, and has about as much alcohol as wine. Vodka and Red Bull has much more of each chemical, and few have taken notice of this trend.
ReplyDeletePeter Myers