Study Gets Students' Reactions to College DrinkingSeptember 13, 2000
Research Summary
A new e-mail poll indicates that college administrators may be on the wrong track when it comes to curbing alcohol abuse and related problems, the Los Angeles Times reported Sept. 3.The survey on student drinking habits at four-year colleges and universities in California and around the United States found that California college students don't drink as much as students in the Northeast or the Midwest. Furthermore, students attending private colleges and universities are more likely to admit to binge drinking than those at public institutions.
The survey found that students had a lot to say about binge drinking. A majority of those polled disagreed with the Harvard School of Public Health's definition of binge drinking as having five drinks at one sitting for men or four drinks for women.
"If that's binge drinking, then 95 percent of my campus binge drinks every week!" wrote a UCLA junior. "If I have five drinks in one sitting, I cannot drive a motor vehicle, but I am certainly coherent, without slurred speech, without staggering. It depends on the person."
When asked to define binge drinking, 62 percent said six or more drinks in one sitting to be "excessive drinking," while 54 percent defined binge drinking as at least eight drinks in one sitting.
The study also revealed that students enrolled at Northern California campuses are twice as likely to admit to "misusing alcohol" as their peers in Southern California.
The survey by Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates of Washington, D.C., was based on a poll of 2,500 students who returned e-mail surveys from July 20 to Aug. 4. Of the 2,500 students, 449 were from California.
To address the problem of college drinking, 67 percent said they would ban hard liquor. Currently, college administrators are focusing on banning keg parties.
"Once I got talked into doing shots and just couldn't handle it," a UC Berkeley sophomore wrote on her survey. "I ended up with a guy that I kind of knew, and he wouldn't take no for an answer. You hear the word date rape but never think it could happen to you."
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