The Center for Alcohol Studies and Education, an on-campus organization working to increase alcohol awareness, is launching a new campaign with businesses along Water Street to make the information more readily available for students.
CASE director Jennifer Lee said that by working with local businesses, they can better inform off-campus students of their message.
“One of our goals is to reach off-campus students because they are the harder group to reach,” she said. “We want them to still get all the positives out of drinking that they’re looking for by drinking at a lower risk.”
Lee said CASE has a harm-reduction philosophy and is working to make drinking at a lower risk more practical.
“We did a study last spring with students to see if they knew what responsible drinking was,” she said. “We heard a lot of the slogans like ‘know your limits’ and ‘don’t drink and drive,’ but they’re very vague definitions of responsible drinking.”
She said in order to help students get a more practical slogan, CASE developed the “0123 strategy.”
CASE now works with restaurants including Buzzy’s Pizza Emporium, 414 Water St., Erbert & Gerbert’s, 405 Water St., and Jeff and Jim’s Pizza, 421 Water St., who agreed to put the “0123” stickers on their delivery items.
“They put the stickers on them (food wrappers), so when they deliver food to campus, students will get exposed to it,” Lee said.
Sophomore David Hon, a CASE peer advisor, explained that “0123” means to warn students to have zero drinks if they are under 21 or driving, one standard drink an hour, drinking a max of two times per week and no more than three drinks per occasion.
Dooley’s Pub, 442 Water St., the Pioneer Tavern, 401 Water St., and Mogie’s Pub, 436 Water St., agreed to put up posters and distribute cards that show the specific blood-alcohol concentration levels related to weight and number of drinks in order to promote responsible drinking habits.
“Hopefully it will increase awareness and limit risky drinking behavior in bars,” Hon said. “The students will be much safer, and it may cause less property damage for the bars.”
The cards have a color-coded system, and CASE is trying to help keep everyone in the safe drinking zone. The posters and cards tell you how to calculate your Blood Alcohol Content and provide numbers for taxi services if the students determine they are unsafe to drive.
“It’s important for people to know how to calculate their BAC,” Hon said. “It helps the student decide what level they’re at, and hopefully that way we don’t have as many drunk driving
incidents.’
According to the Wisconsin department of Transportation, Wisconsin currently holds the highest drunken driving rate in the country.
Senior April Spence lives off campus and said she hasn’t seen any of these measures yet but thinks they will have a positive impact on the community.
“I definitely think just hearing about it will make people more aware,” she said. “A lot of people don’t know how much they’ve been drinking or don’t know their limits, so hopefully this would help.'”
