A Battle That Needs to Be Fought Harder

In late January some students made their way to the Statehouse to lobby for a requirement that kegs of beer be sold with an ID number and records of who bought and sold the keg. I would like to extend my congratulations to these students for perusing an incredible noble cause that many of their peers may shoot them down for. While students here in Iowa City try to fight the issue of drinking age and admittance into bars, its nice to see that there are young adults fighting the battle of underage drinking. It baffles me that this country is so obsessed with alcohol, and its not that hard to see (Anheuser-Busch once again had the highest rated commercials during the Super Bowl). There are plenty of people out there that claim that underage drinking its terrible and we should not be allow our young adults to be harming themselves in such a manner. Yet for some reason our culture is one of immense hypocrisy: a student is caught drinking underage and society collectively gives them a slap on the wrist and young adults continue to drink. If this is a battle that we truly wish to fight then there has to be some bite that comes with societies bark. The registration of kegs is just the tip of the ice berg. It would not only help combat parents illegally providing minors with alcohol, it would also serve as a tool to clean up binge drinking parties on college campuses across that state by providing larger fines to those who serve to underage drinkers. I commend these students for their efforts, hopefully they are not in vein.