...but what an asshole officer man.
Why do you judge the officer as such? If I read the posts in this thread correctly, the original poster said the officer was friendly and joked with him a bit while they conversed. So the copper is a bad guy for enforcing the law that people and their legislators have enacted? I know, it would have been nice for the officer to exercise discretion here and let him go, but for some reason he did not. But that doesn't make him bad.
Here's the thing: Most onerous laws, and their enforcement, can be directly attributed to someone screwing up and ruining it for others. It's quite likely the original poster's college or his college town is currently experiencing a rash of trouble with intoxicated college kids and the coppers have received recent directives to take action to curb underage drinking and extreme public intoxication by those of legal age. Their department likely wants to see a pile of tickets so they can take them (just the statistics, actually) to the city leaders and show them as proof that they are taking measures to curb problems associated with intoxication. Or maybe a college kid or two died as a result of some drunken binge activity and their parents are suing the college and its town for tacitly allowing underage and binge drinking by their kids who are away from home. Who knows.
I do think you judged the officer a bit harsh.