April 3, 2002 -- Last Saturday night, my wife and I went out for something to eat and a few good beers. We were intent on exploring a couple of recent arrivals on the Toronto beer bar scene, but had also just completed a long, arduous day of work. So we relaxed with a Czech lager each before we went out around 7:30.

At the first bar, we enjoyed two more beers each while we split first a cheese plate and then an order of chicken wings. Following a fifteen-minute walk, we landed at our second destination and each had another beer. Then we stopped for pizza slices en route to the third bar, where I had two more beers and she one while we split a plate of pita bread and assorted Mediterranean dips. Then we caught a cab home.

We thought we had just enjoyed a pleasant night out. Little did we know we had been binge drinking.

Over the course of the evening, which I might add lasted from about 6:30 to 1:15, I consumed six beers and Christine had five, one more for our respective genders than the stated lower limits for so-called 'binge' drinking at U.S. universities, according to recent reports. If we were still in university and were to do that more than once every two weeks, and we generally do, we would be considered part of the campus drinking problem in the United States. This even though neither of us drove, caused any trouble or was even notably impaired.

Yet according to recent studies, a 'shocking' 44% of U.S. college students drink the way we did on Saturday. And that's apparently a bad thing, one which proves the drinking style on campus is "still one of excess," according to Henry Wechsler of the Harvard School of Public Health.

This kind of statistical insanity is what leads to anti-alcohol hysteria. Fortunately, from time to time cooler heads are afforded a venue in which to air more reasonable views. Today's USA Today is one of those venues and Laura Vanderkam one of those cooler heads. You can find her excellent opinion piece at: http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20020403/3992946s.htm For a dissenting view, USA Today also presents an opinion column by Philip Meyer, viewable at http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20020403/3992945s.htm

See which one you think makes more sense.

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