COSAP's vagueness muddies message

Daily Lobo Staff Columnist
opinion@dailylobo.com

While cleaning up my girlfriend’s dorm for the summer I found a pamphlet from UNM’s Campus Office of Substance Abuse Prevention. At the start of the semester, they had given everybody who lived in the dorms a pamphlet entitled “Fun in the 505” that purports that “getting drunk is too easy” and offers a list of fun things to do instead of drinking.

I’m not opposed to what they’re trying to accomplish. According to USA Today an average of 36 college students across the country will die per year from alcohol related accidents. And there is a lot of trouble a college student can get into when irresponsibly using alcohol, from unprotected sex to trouble with the law. No, my problem with the “Fun in the 505” has nothing to do with its goals, but instead with its statistics and presentation.

Statistics can be bent or, in the case of COSAP’s flyer, can be completely broken. It’s not because their statistics are wrong, it‘s because they do not appear to understand statistics at all. Take this phrase from page 28: “Did you know… about 80% of UNM students decide ahead not to exceed a set number of drinks to be SAFE.” Ignoring what a terribly clunky sentence this is, what does “about 80%” mean? Does that mean 80.4%? Does it mean 79%? Maybe they are rounding up. Maybe they are rounding down. They do this multiple times in the flier too. “Over,” “above,” and “about” only muddy the statistic and make me doubt their facts. These are called “weasel words”. This indicates to me that they are either unsure of their facts or wish to obscure information.

And how do we define drinking responsibly? COSAP seems to think that it is no more than three drinks a week. I gather from their statements that students who drink more get low grades. If 80 percent of students drink responsibly defined as no more than 3 units per week (of what I wonder), anyone who doesn’t fit that category is in the 20 percent. So, what is the number of who drink irresponsibly and what is the number of those who don’t drink at all? Did they just take the numbers and use those numbers without considering how they were presenting them?
Another big problem I have is the list of restaurants the flier has as a “safe” alternative to drinking. Of the 40 restaurants listed, 18 of them will serve you alcoholic drinks. That’s 45 percent of all the restaurants listed, in case the COSAP readers didn’t know. One of them, Sushi and Sake, even has the name of an alcoholic drink in its name.

They go on to say that “drawing, reading, and playing games are great ways to use your brain. DRINKING IS NOT.” I don’t like being shouted at, but that’s hardly the point. What reading, what games? Playing videogames might improve your brain, though not all games are created equally. Neither are books. I think reading Twilight or badly written pamphlets might just be as bad if not worse for your brain than three drinks of alcohol a week.

I do not know who COSAP hired to do their layouts, but overcrowded pages with clashing primary colors make me feel sick. The constantly changing font sizes and text colors is distracting. The bouncy text and condescending language pisses me off. The 1980s language about COOL becoming FOOL is not funny and is dated. And why bouncy text anyway? I can only think that if you get drunk enough the text will seem normal so that you’ll still be able to read it when the world has become a spinning, blurry mess.

The best part of the pamphlet comes at the end. On the final page there is a list of bullet points detailing COSAP’s stance on substance abuse. The first bullet point is, word for word, “We always support abstinence from alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs.” The second bullet point says, “We neither oppose nor encourage the use of alcohol in low risk situations.” This directly contradicts the first point. You do have a stance, you oppose it or you were lying about the “always” in the sentence above?

When you present information, you have to know your audience. This is writing 101. When you use weasel words, outdated phrases, and muddied statistics you alienate your audience and the message you intended to say only looks like it was presented by a stuffed-shirt trying too hard. It wrecks any value your message carries. Would any college student listen to somebody who says “Don’t Let Cool Become Fool”? They won’t. That the statistics are vague won’t be missed either. College students aren’t as dumb as that. Statistics that fall apart if any thought is put into them will be noticed.

So, let’s put it this way:

People can wreck their lives with alcohol. It can interfere with school and home life. It can be addictive. My grandfather was an alcoholic. He was the sort of guy who started with beer in the morning, wine for lunch and hard liquor past noon. It seeped into every corner of his life and it destroyed him. He died of liver cancer in 1996. He was not a nice man. You can drink. But be aware of the risks. Be responsible and don’t make excuses for bad behavior. Learn, evaluate facts and don’t take statistics at face-value.

I expect better things from COSAP in the future.