7/18 column: A new attitude about alcohol?

I’ve done my share of griping about alcohol abuse in Iowa City.

But I’m feeling optimistic after spending time on the phone this week with University of Iowa Provost Wallace Loh.

Sure, he said, students are going to drink. The UI shouldn’t condone it, but they do need to recognize that it’s a fact of life. He threw out several ideas that wouldn’t just hold students accountable for dangerous drinking, but would educate them about responsible drinking, too.

“It’s not about temperance or abstinence or the age 21 issue,” he told me. “It’s about student success and student safety.”

The issue is a real monster to try to wrap your head around: UI students drink more, and more often, then their peers at many other institutions.

Dangerous drinking (Loh doesn’t like the term “binge drinking”) leads to lower grade point averages, problems with health and safety and can be a nuisance for the community at large.

Iowa City has been wrestling with this downward drinking spiral for years. There have been too many stabs at this issue to count.

There was yet another push this spring with the formation of the Partnership for Alcohol Safety, a group that includes UI and city officials, business owners (including bars), community organizations, medical professionals, police and students.

But Loh, who co-chairs the committee with Iowa City Mayor Regenia Bailey, was quick to point out that this is no study group. He wants action.

“It’s trial and error, experiment,” he said. “Let’s do things — let’s stop studying it.”

“This problem has been studied to death,” he said.

“There are hundreds and hundreds of articles with recommendations. What there is very little of is people taking action.”

So the partnership focuses its energies on specific, concrete ideas for gradually changing the culture, he said. The UI is stepping up with police overtime on downtown patrol, beefing up alcohol safety education training for freshmen and offering even more intensive training to at-risk groups.

They plan better communication with parents and cooperation with bar owners. They’ll schedule more Friday classes and fund more alternative activities, he said.

Loh’s goal: fewer alcohol-related emergency room admissions. A drop in blood alcohol levels, reduced incidents of alcohol-related assaults, fewer dropouts and more.

It’s going to take time, he admits. And he’s not under the illusion that binge-drinking rate is going to shrink to zero.

In other words, he’s taking seriously the issue of dangerous drinking, but he’s doing it with a healthy dose of realism.

That might be just the attitude it takes to gradually turn this problem around.