Long before the TV trucks showed up in Durham two years ago, Duke students had a binge-drinking problem. It wasn't just a Duke problem, but there was a Duke-specific problem: students in rented houses staging loud parties and being bad neighbors.

In one neighborhood where residents were fed up with (in their view) bratty rich kids and drunken parties, the Duke lacrosse team held a party and hired strippers. Guys got drunk. And lo! Bad stuff happened.

Binge-drinking college students place themselves at risk for bad stuff. Some drive drunk, hurting or killing themselves and others. Some jump or fall from high places. Some get prosecuted by unscrupulous DAs.

When bad stuff happens to drunks, it can be out of proportion to the original misbehavior. And so it was at the house on Buchanan Boulevard.

The problem was the context in which the misbehavior happened: The tinder was already dry and the desert wind was blowing in Trinity Park. The lacrosse party was the match that got tossed in.

Small wonder, then, that Duke president Richard Brodhead has joined a national college leaders' initiative to seek a discussion about perhaps lowering the drinking age as one way of discouraging reckless behavior with alcohol.

Alcohol is strange. Some young people learn quickly how to handle it responsibly. Some need a few years of practice (that's one purpose of college, I guess). And some never learn.

I sympathize with the college presidents; out-of-control drinkers are dangerous and disruptive. But making beer and booze more accessible is no remedy.

One simple solution? Higher taxes on the stuff. It works for tobacco.