We’ve been hearing a lot about Four Loko, a caffeinated, alcoholic (12% abv) malt beverage invented by three guys who went to college together at Ohio State University.

Upon learning that an excess of Four Loko contributed to the collective intoxication that sent nine of his students to the hospital, James Gaudino, president of Central Washington University, banned all alcoholic energy drinks from campus. (The party where the students drank the Four Loko, it should be mentioned, was not on campus).

John McCardell used to be a college president. Like Gaudino, he had the difficult job of dealing with the crises that emerge out of a culture of binge drinking. McCardell is the founder of Choose Responsibility. It’s a partnership with the Robertson Foundation—the foundation approached McCardell after learning about his idea to lower the drinking age, in the United States, to 18. McCardell thinks teenagers should be required to take alcohol education classes and that drunk driving laws should be made much stricter. From the Choose Responsibility website: "Alcohol is a reality in the lives of young Americans. It cannot be denied, ignored, or legislated away."

I was a student at Middlebury College—a liberal arts school in a tiny Vermont town—in the years that McCardell ran the place. And I can see why he may have found some room for improvement in the way we students chose to appreciate alcohol. Middlebury is not unique for having a student body that spends its free hours consuming as much bad booze as possible, but I remember it as being a drunken zoo nonetheless. Smashed beer bottles and upturned trashcans in the dorm hallways were a daily reality. Depressing drunken arguments startled us awake nearly every night. If you found this lifestyle unappealing, you could banish yourself to a "substance-free dorm." We chose the extreme we preferred. (The school has since changed its housing policies.)

Like driving—something that we assume requires an education—drinking alcohol is something you learn to do well. You’re not born with that ability. But unlike memorizing traffic laws, learning about booze is fun. And one thing I’ve learned while writing this blog is that the more you try very good alcoholic beverages, the less tolerant you are of bad ones. If we taught 18-year-olds to understand that Four Loko tastes bad, and gave them the option to drink something better, would they choose more wisely? If we taught them to stop drinking before they were so intoxicated they had to go to the hospital, would they stop?

I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure banning alcoholic energy drinks from Central’s campus isn’t going to do much of anything.