Tufts' new alcohol policy appears to have had little effect on whether students seek aid from Tufts Emergency Medical Services (TEMS), countering much speculation and concern that the new regulations would deter students from seeking medical assistance due to fear of disciplinary measures.
TEMS Executive Director Allie Krill noted that so far this year, the policy has not affected the number of students seeking the group's help.
"[The number of alcohol-related calls] has not decreased because of the policy," Krill said. "The volume of calls we've gotten has been in line with around the same time last year."
Administrators changed Tufts' alcohol policy at the beginning of the semester in response to a rise in alcohol-related incidents over the past several years. Under the new policy, underage students charged with alcohol violations are immediately placed on level-one disciplinary probation (pro-one), which limits numerous student privileges. In prior years, first-time violators received a warning.
Many students raised concerns that the policy's harsher disciplinary repercussions would not address the root cause of dangerous drinking practices and would instead discourage students from calling TEMS when they were overly intoxicated and in need of medical assistance.
But consistency in the volume of TEMS calls indicates that the new policy has neither acted as a deterrent nor considerably changed the drinking practices of Tufts students, as the administration had hoped in enacting the new regulations.
Krill dispelled the notion that the new policy has altered the drinking habits of students. "We've always seen quite the range [of levels of intoxication] amongst students that we pick, and we've seen the full range this year."
Tufts University Police Department (TUPD) Capt. Mark Keith agreed that he had not seen a drop in the number of calls, but he said that it was too soon to tell the greater effects of the policy.
"It's a little tough to tell whether or not there's been a change in people's habits given [that] it's only been seven or eight weeks, but so far it really hasn't been any big deviation from the last several years," Keith said.
TEMS advisor Geoffrey Bartlett also cautioned that it was too early to draw significant conclusions about the new regulations.
"We are really only a month and a half into this new policy," Bartlett said. "That's too little time to come to a conclusion on effect."
Critics felt that the policy might lead students to wait until friends reached more severe levels of intoxication before calling for medical assistance. But so far this semester the severity of cases has not worsened from that of prior years, according to Keith.
"Personally, I haven't noticed a lot of people worse off than they were in the past," he said.
Bartlett said that the amount of alcohol-related calls does vary from year to year but for the most part the changes in numbers are insignificant, and he expects that pattern to continue regardless of the new policy.
"From one year to the next, if calls go up or if they go down a few numbers, you could make that seem significant in percentage points, but the truth is that the numbers have basically been the same," Bartlett said.
Keith is optimistic that despite the new policy, students will not be discouraged from helping fellow students.
"I would hope and expect that if any Tufts student found a person in need of medical attention, the first thing on their mind would be to help their friends by calling for medical attention," he said.
