Arizona Prof's Research: Getting Students Drunk

An Arizona State professor wants his students to get smashed—and he’s willing to pay them to do it. That’s because William Corbin is researching the effects of alcohol on behavior, and ASU students are his subjects. Several nights a week, he converts his lab into a bar, complete with top 40 music and jeans-clad research assistants as bartenders, the Arizona Republic reports. Only one kind of drink is served, vodka mixed with 7UP and juice, whose strength is adjusted according to the subject’s weight and sex.

Each student, aged between 21 and 30, gets three drinks in a half hour. The aim: 0.08% blood alcohol levels for all, the threshold for drunk driving in the state. After using a Breathalyzer to make sure the students are suitably plastered, the researchers launch the experimental part of the night. That can include memory and risk-taking tests, such as playing slot machines. Students get paid $60 for their work—and get sent home in a taxi ... after they've sobered up. (More alcohol stories.)