There are three types of lies: Lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Did y'all see that "study" that came out a few days ago, that stated that 25% of all alcoholic beverages were consumed by underage drinkers? Somebody refuting it said that would mean that underage drinkers would have to drink an average of 120 drinks per month. They'd never be sober!!
Turns out the group doing the study deliberately oversampled people ages 12-20 so that they could get statistically valid results regarding *underage* drinking, but when they ran the figures for the *total* population, they (conveniently) forgot to adjust for the oversampling.
And as we all know, the media loves painting greeks as a bunch of drunken louts.
dzrose makes an excellent point that generally, only upperclassmen live in chapter houses, so there's a higher percentage of people of legal drinking age there.
If there's an alcohol related incident and there's any indication whatsoever that the greek system might be involved, you bet you'll hear about it. You'll hear about how "Joe Smith, an XYZ pledge, was found unconscious in ABC fraternity house after having had 10 shots of vodka." But you never hear "Joe Smith, resident of Blahblahblah House, was found unconscious at a Blahblahblah dorm party after 10 shots of vodka." Funny, that.
And I agree with 33girl... if kids grew up with the attitude that alcohol is a normal part of life, no big deal, rather than this forbidden drug that mom and dad use and won't let them have any of... they're less likely to try to get it illegally and go off and get shit-faced. That's how I was raised and how I will raise my children... a (small) glass of wine with weekend dinners, a glass of champagne on New Year's, etc.
