To the editor,
I laughed out loud when I saw Middlebury making national news with its recent ban on Red Bull. So did the entire station full of paramedics and EMTs where I volunteer, since I couldn’t help but pass around the NBC News article quoting college officials who blamed energy drinks for “high-risk sex and drug use.” We had dramatic readings and re-readings of portions of the article in which a room full of colleagues with 100+ years of combined experience in emergency medicine could barely get through Dining Services Executive Director Dan Detora’s quote - “I see it as the equivalent of banning cigarettes” - without hyperventilating. As a friend who’s a doctor and fellow Middlebury alum put it: “The college that wanted to drop the drinking age to 18 is now banning caffeine.”
I can just picture the scene now: members of Community Council huddled around the WebMD symptom checker, inputting their daily energy drink consumption and convincing themselves they were in the middle of a major cardiac episode. Those of us who attended Middlebury before the school turned into Nanny University eagerly await the college’s coming bans on saturated fats, soft drinks over 12 ounces, sharp objects and any items that may hurt when thrown.
Derek Schlickeisen graduated in 2009.
