Alex Torpey

Early Life
Alex Torpey was born in Manhattan, New York on August 10th, 1987. Shortly after his birth his family moved to Maplewood, New Jersey. In 5th grade, the family moved one town over to South Orange.

High School
Alex attended Columbia High School, playing varsity tennis for four years and co-captaining his senior year. Over the summer between his junior and senior year Alex filmed, produced and edited a short documentary film about air pollution in New Jersey.

Famous Daves
At a certain point, returning from a random road trip with a friend, Alex and this friend stumbled upon the restaurant Famous Daves on Route 22 in Mountainside, NJ. Since then he has become utterly infatuated with Famous Daves, and BBQ sauce in general. Famous Daves is bar &amp; grill type restaurant found mostly on the east coast and down south. They serve delicious food at a reasonable price in a fun atmosphere. "There is always a good time to be had at Famous Daves." Says Alex. "The more people you can bring to an event, there more fun it will be. I must warn you however, that be wary of any waitress with the name Lisa... just trust me."

Post High School &amp; College Life
For his undergraduate studies, Alex chose to attend Hampshire College, in beautiful Amherst, Massachusetts. He based this decision off of an unflinching disagreement regarding traditional structured learning environments. He believed that the best way to become educated was to learn for the point of learning, not for scoring high on a test. Hampshire's history of providing a non-traditional education was very appealing, and he has enjoyed his education more than he originally thought he could.

Hampshire has provided an environment that has accelerated Alex's growth as a person. Inside the classroom/outside the classroom is not a dichotomy at Hampshire. Rather, every activity, whether it physically be in an academic building or not is considered an academic endeavor. Between four years of service on the student government, writing for the school paper, DJing at the radio station, working for Public Safety, starting the tennis team, hosting some of the best parties on campus with great live music, or playing a mean game of boccie, Alex has experienced and grown substantially (even more exponentially than his student debt) in his four years at Hampshire.

Alex's curiosity in law and politics blossomed into a passion for the anthropology of law. Alex has taken courses and participated in extra-curricular that have given him an excellent look into the human nature of law and politics - how people act individually and in groups within various legal and cultural controls. With a focus on criminal law, Alex hopes that this passion will carry him into a successful political career in public policy. Re-examining the drinking age and our policies regulating alcohol has been a focus of Alex's, and has inspired him further that working with public policy is a constructive way to make change that he sees as imperative.

Alex's fascination with the number 84 will never die.

Division III Project[[Image:Alextorpeydiv3cover3.jpg|right|Alex's Div 3 cover]]
Alex's DIV III is a 220+ page book currently (As of May 4th, 2008) titled "Breaking Taboo - Examining America's alcohol problem and the policies we need to finally solve it".

The project will focus on alcohol in the United States, looking through a cultural and social lens. The United States, much like many other countries, has had an ambiguous history of alcohol use, and more recently, has shown to be a country leading many others throughout the world in alcohol abuse, especially among younger Americans.

The idea is to throw out our antiquated notions regarding alcohol policy in favor of policies that are based in pragmatic and conclusive scientific evidence - not political ideologies. By drawing the line at 21, and categorizing all alcohol use before it as irresponsible and dangerous we push all of its use, even the responsible use, underground, creating a culture of binge drinking and disrespect for authority and law. This circumstance creates social expectations where using alcohol as a mitigating factor in misbehavior is tolerated and encouraged.

By bringing families and schools back into the equation of alcohol education and releasing the federal government's grip on state's rights by removing the national highway funding mandate, we can start to a create a culture in young America where alcohol use is talked about, not ignored, and where responsible drinking, instead of binge drinking, becomes the cultural norm.

The book has three main sections: History, Current State of Affairs and Policy Proposals:


 * Table of Contents 2 
 * Acknowledgements 5
 * Preface 6
 * Introduction 8
 * Section One :: Pints to Prohibition 16 
 * Chapter (01) Nascent America 17
 * Early Drinking Practices 18
 * Public Drinking Spaces 26
 * Chapter (02) Pre-prohibition and Temperance 28
 * A Changing American Landscape 29
 * The American Temperance Movement 32
 * Chapter (03) Prohibition 37
 * Discontent &amp; Youth Culture 47
 * Prohibition Privatizing of American Drinking Practices 52
 * Chapter (04) Post-Repeal 55
 * Disease Concept of Alcoholism 57
 * The Rise of Drunk Driving as a Social Problem 58
 * Section Two :: Current Analysis 60 
 * Chapter (05) Introduction 61
 * Chapter (06) A Conversation about the Conversation 65
 * Chapter (07) What is the Drinking Age? 72
 * The Minimum Legal Drinking Age 72
 * Chapter (08) Drinking Practices in the US 81
 * Who drinks in America 81
 * How do young Americans learn to drink? 83
 * The Underground Culture 91
 * Chapter (09) Drinking Practices In Other Cultures 98
 * Camba; Eastern Bolivia 98
 * American Jews 103
 * France 105
 * Chapter (10) What factors affect one’s drunken comportment? 108
 * What are Social Controls? 108
 * An Analysis of our Case-Studies 109
 * Social Expectancies and the Placebo Effect 111
 * Chapter (11) How does alcohol affect people’s health? 114
 * Alcohol in Public Health Discourse 114
 * Alcohol and the Teen Brain 116
 * How Alcohol Affects the Mind 120
 * Health Drawbacks of Excessive Alcohol Consumption 124
 * Potential Drawbacks of Moderate Consumption 125
 * Potential Positive Benefits of Moderate Consumption 126
 * Chapter (12) MADD &amp; Drunk Driving 128
 * A Short History of Tackling Drunk Driving via the Drinking Age 129
 * Methodology of Claiming the Drinking Age Reduced Drunk Driving 133
 * Why Did Drunk Driving Go Down? 138
 * A look at the most powerful alcohol-related organization: MADD 143
 * Conclusion 145
 * Section Three :: Legislating Responsibility 147 
 * Chapter (13) Introduction 148
 * Comprehensive &amp; Graduated Policies 151
 * Case Study: Learning from success - GDL’s 155
 * A Renewed Focus on Responsibility 158
 * Chapter (14) :: Under 18: Responsibility Through Education 161
 * Chapter (15) :: 18-20: Responsibility Through Experience 172
 * Chapter (16) :: 21 and Over: Continued Responsibility 187
 * Chapter (17) :: Drunk Driving Policy Proposals 191
 * Chapter 18 :: Conclusion 197
 * Selected Sources 199 

Fall 2005

 * CS-0164 Human Nature,Language,Politics
 * IA-0167 Before the Harlem Renaissance
 * SS-184T American Capitalism
 * SS-0207 Environmental Policy

January 2006

 * SS-0100 Independent Study - The Ideal Type of Government: A Study Into Modern Political Economical Social Structure

Spring 2006

 * CS-0139 Animal Cognition
 * NS-0113 Water Water Everywhere
 * HACU-0178 Media Studies: Advert &amp; Society
 * SS-0222 Rethinking the Population Problem

Fall 2006

 * HACU-0102 Science and Religion
 * SS-0116 World Trade and the WTO
 * SS-0261 Environ'tal Hist of N America
 * ECON-0295 M Independent Study - Statistics of the Jury Selection Process (Mt. Holyoke College)

January 2007

 * Independent Study - Community Council, the History of Community Council

Spring 2007

 * SS-0274 1 Punishment, Politics &amp; Culture
 * SS-0284 1 Theorizing Religion
 * GOV-202 S American Constitutional Law (Smith College)
 * SS-0113 1 Politics of Health Insurance

Fall 2007

 * SS-0238 1 Economic Development
 * SS-0263 1 Political Research &amp; Writing
 * ECO-153 S Introductory MacRoeconomics (Smith College)
 * SS-0113 1 Politics of Health Insurance

January 2008

 * SS-0200 4 Independent Study - Reducing Crime Through Community Policing

Spring 2008

 * SS-0268 1 Post-September 11 World
 * ECON-309 U Game Theory (UMass Amherst)
 * LJST-34 A Law/Crime/Culture (Amherst College)
 * NS-0265 1 Statistics

Fall 2008

 * LJST-50 20th Century American Legal Theory (Amherst College)

Attitudes and Notes on Things
-&gt;More to come, stay tuned.

Group Involvement

 * Chair, Community Council
 * Chair, SafeCom
 * Co-Chair, COCD
 * Chair, Five-College Student Coordinating Board
 * Staff Writer, The Climax
 * DJ, host of "Team Time with Torpey", The Yurt
 * Student Representative, Environmental Health &amp; Safety Committee
 * Student Representative, Campus Planning Committee
 * Co-Founder and Chief Law, Jurisprudence &amp; Social Though Researcher, American Policy Foundation
 * Co-Captain, Hampshire College Tennis Team
 * Chancellor, Slipper Enthusiasts of America
 * Hampshire Pre-Law Society

= External Links =


 * AlexTorpey.com
 * Alex Torpey on LinkedIn
 * Alex Torpey at the Fall 2008 Hampshire College Welcoming Ceremony
 * Alex Torpey on Wordpress
 * Alex Torpey on Twitter
 * Alex Torpey's Division III Project and Beyond Amethyst Conference on Admissions Spotlight