Students for Safe Drinking

Students for Safe Drinking is a harm reduction group which seeks to reduce the harms associated with the use of alcohol on college campuses. We recognize that college drinking is a reality; we neither encourage nor condemn alcohol intoxication. We realize that it is unrealistic and unviable to expect all college students to either abstain from alcohol or drink in moderation. And we realize that preaching about the evils of alcohol not only fails to achieve results, it actually makes people drink more.

We believe that the most realistic way to reduce the harms associated with college drinking is to educate students about safe partying techniques and to encourage them to adopt them. To this end we present The College Students Guide to Safe Drinking which offers safe drinking strategies for students.

Students for Safe Drinking is dedicated to saving the lives of students by providing information about and encouragement for safe drinking practices. We believe that giving people the straight facts about alcohol--both good and bad--is the best way to empower people to make good decisions about drinking.

We maintain an online harm reduction discussion group for people who want to practice safe drinking and for people who wish to promote safe drinking on their campus. We also highly recommend the following harm reduction sites for those seeking more harm reduction information:

HAMS - Harm Reduction for Alcohol
The Safety First

Harm reduction is a set of pragmatic and humanistic strategies aimed at reducing the individual and social harms associated with various high risk behaviors ranging from drinking alcohol to drug use to gambling to sexual behaviors. A hallmark of harm reduction is that it relies on methodologies that safeguard the dignity, humanity and human rights of people who engage in high risk behaviors.

Harm reduction recognizes that the vast majority of individuals who engage in high risk behaviors have no intention of causing harm to themselves or others; individuals engage in these behaviors because there is a payoff to them.

Harm reduction does not seek to change people in ways which they do not choose for themselves, rather, harm reduction meets people "where they are at" with their behaviors and supports "every positive change".

Harm reduction seeks to supply individuals with the means to reduce harms associated with their behaviors by giving them the tools and information needed to do so.

Harm reduction recognizes that it can be more effective for many people to make small changes than for a few people to make large changes.