I am sick and tired of hearing lecturers and students pontificate about the dangers of alcohol.

I am all for informing of the dangers of massive alcohol consumption. I am all for making labels on containers readily show the quantity of ingredients in alcohol; all alcohol should have a list of the ingredients in an easily readable manner. I am all for teaching about the risks of drinking and driving.

But I want those things taught to children and teenagers, and I want the labels readable on the container — not read aloud to me. I don’t want to hear someone drone on about alcohol’s risks when I am legally able to drink — much like the recent presentation, “Energy Drinks And Alcohol: What is All of the Buzz About?” at the Youth & Shelter Services Risky Business conference.

For the most part, when you are out of high school, you are legally an adult. As an adult, if you want to drink until you black out, fine, that is your choice. I will not outright condone underage drinking, but the 18 to 20-year-old crowd is not the audience these drinking messages should be targeted at.

I will wholeheartedly agree that it is a terrible and saddening day when someone dies due to reasons other than natural causes. I can feel the pain whenever I hear of a car accident where some drunk schmuck kills a family. But I am sick and tired of activists who attack alcohol and drinking and try to warn of all the adverse effects, blaming the entire population of drinkers for the infuriating actions of a despicable minority of the consuming population. It’s like the armchair pundits attacking gun owners rather than criminals — absolutely infuriating.

Apart from when the tragic incident is the result of an underage drinker — which is a failing of parents and the educational system — the messages from those trying to “educate” are only annoying.

When an adult drinks, if he or she doesn’t know that drinking a six-pack in an hour will impair their driving, then the early education system failed. Continuing to try to inform them is not going to do diddly squat.

And as for criticism of marketing products such as Four Loko toward youth; give me a break. Folks well into their 20s, 30s and even 40s are interested in flashy cans with colorful art; they like snazzy advertising that has little to do with a product the same way a teenager might. Marketing can span ages and demographics; what might target an older crowd, could, by some twist of fate, be appealing to youth.

Alcohol is something dangerous that people like to drink, and it is legal. There are risks associated with alcohol and we need to point our education about alcohol’s risks — be you activist or researcher — toward youth, so that they are familiar with them before they begin drinking.

Once the drinking begins for a person, it is all on them. No amount of education is going to prevent someone from drinking extreme amounts of alcohol if the person feels like doing so. No matter how dangerous caffeine and alcohol might be, the activity of mixing the two is not going to stop. Making a big issue of it is, from what I have viewed, only makes more people do it to spite what they have been told, or to continue doing it because they are not worried.

From what I have learned, the best way to understand the negative effects of alcohol consumption is by experience. It might not be the safest way, but a two-day hangover has taught me more about over-consumption than anything I have heard since grade school.