Debate over alcohol sparked as students are hospitalised
The events of Freshers’ Week have sparked a heated debate amongst student representatives about the role of alcohol in campus life. Goodricke JCRC Chair Ben Wardle has called the levels of drinking on the YUSU-organised Viking Raid “obscene” and said that it undermines the responsible drinking message espoused by JCRCs and YUSU.
Wardle, who was a steward on the 1,700 person bar crawl, said: “There will always be a demand for alcoholic events and the solution is not to get rid of those but to get rid of the stigma of not drinking. I think the problem is not helped with things like YUSU Viking Raid. I organised a bar crawl with only six bars. Viking Raid is eight bars in a few hours. It is obscene. It is ridiculous.”
Wardle said that he believed the decision to use eight bars was motivated by profit and that “encouraging fast-paced drinking for profit can only be described as wrong.”
Wardle added that the message of responsible drinking was further undermined by the heavy alcohol use among union sabbatical officers. He said: “It does not promote responsible drinking if the managers of the union are blind drunk while stewarding.”
Alcuin JCRC Chair Louis Wihl also expressed concerns over the levels of drinking on the Viking Raid but said he would not comment until he had had a chance to raise the issue with YUSU.
YUSU Service and Finance Officer Matt Burton has refuted the allegation that the decision to use eight bars was motivated by profit. He said: “That is simply not the case. If you look at the route you will see that bars have been paired up in order to combat the queuing issues.” Burton admitted that the pairing system had not been advertised but said he didn’t believe students felt encouraged to attend all eight bars.
President Anne Marie-Canning said: “No one batical officers] was incredibly drunk. Ben also drank as well. Some officers chose to drink, some didn’t. Some went home early, some stayed. I think officers behaved responsibly and I don’t think there was any issue last night.” YUSU Societies and Communications officer Sam Bayley said that Wardle was “exaggerating”.
When asked whether the Viking Raid undermined the responsible drinking message put out by YUSU and JCRCs, Academic and Welfare officer Grace Fletcher-Hall said: “I would say there is obviously an encouragement to get drunk, I wouldn’t say there is a pressure and I think the number of bars we include is definitely something to look at in the future.”
Speaking earlier in the week, Fletcher-Hall said that her job would be “irrelevant” if students didn’t drink so much.
“We have had students who’ve reportedly had their drinks spiked. We’ve had students who got so drunk that they’ve had to go to hospital. We’ve had a student who got so drunk that he fell in the river on the way home and of course we had a student who drowned this time last year. It’s just really, really worrying.
“We need a much less alcohol-centred culture, it’s a bit of a no-brainer – if people are going to drink so much bad things are going to happen. Obviously, people need to take individual responsibility but when there are so many opportunities during Freshers’ Week to drink it’s not surprising people end up ill or hurt.”
