[33girl]

I'm really glad that dzrose93 and UMgirl brought up the point of not believing the hype of statistics. Especially that one about living in chapter houses and greater alcohol consumption. They know that the average non-Greek out there has no idea that "chapter houses" sometimes only house 5-6 (out of 50) members!! And they're certainly not going to explain that and lessen the impact.

Regarding Hank Media Whore Nuwer's claim of 56 "Greek related" deaths since 2000, I'd like to know exactly what they are. One of the Sigma Chis from my school was killed driving drunk (he was at home) on his 21st birthday. It was during summer - so there was no official chapter activity going on - and a few brothers were with him. Now if you tell that story and say "Joe was with his friends and drove home drunk" well, whose fault is it? Joe's fault, and to a lesser degree, his friends' fault for not taking his keys. But as soon as you mention that he was a fraternity member and the friends were his brothers, it's a Greek related death, according to Mr. Nuwer's standards. I realize he is trying to do good, but he seems to think this is a problem that can be eliminated by just addressing a very small faction of the US population. Plus I think he has done serious damage to his credibility by using faulty stats to prove a point.

Irresponsible drinking is not a Greek problem. It's not even a college problem. It's a societal problem. If this was a Greek problem, there'd be none of it going on at colleges with no Greek system. It's pointed up the most in college since people are underage, but I've seen plenty of 21+ year olds who have never set foot near a college get shit-faced and do harm to themselves and others on a pretty regular basis. If we educated our children as they grew (and I mean from little up, not DARE in 7th or 8th grade) about how to use and appreciate alcohol, rather than making it a huge devil "forbidden fruit" I doubt we would have the problems we have now. There are always going to be people who become alcoholics - it's a genetic predisposition, that they will never know they have until they take a drink - but as far as preventing alcohol problems, prohibition and demonization don't cut it.

I agree that it would be beneficial to the Greek system if we could completely prevent any risk from alcohol. But how in the world could we do that, other than tell members that they are not permitted to drink at all when they join? I mean, what are we going to do, give urine tests at rush? Talk about numbers rising like a lead balloon.