Spring Season Puts College Students At Risk

HARTFORD — April is Alcohol Awareness Month. It is also a month that often brings an increase in a high-risk behavior among college students. With the arrival of spring comes an increase in outdoor distractions and the heightened anticipation of the end to an academic year.

Unfortunately, this is also a time increasingly spent with friends that often involves excessive alcohol and other drug use — much involving underage drinking and occurring in high-risk settings.

As “spring fever” grows, so does the stress of the end of the spring semester. In the upcoming weeks students will be exposed to, and many will participate in, spring events and parties where they are likely to place themselves at risk for unintentional negative consequences. Students will be under pressure to study for finals, wrap up the academic year, and many will graduate.

Unfortunately, underage and other high-risk drinking is prevalent during this time.

A comprehensive new study from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (CASA) finds that from 1993 to 2005 there has been no decline in student drinking or binge drinking. Even more troubling, there are increases in frequent binge drinking and drinking to get drunk.

Daily marijuana use doubled during that time, and other illicit drug use and prescription drug abuse have jumped sharply. The study also found that 3.8 million, nearly half of all full-time college students, currently binge drink, abuse prescription drugs and/or abuse illegal drugs.

The report, “Wasting the Best and the Brightest: Substance Abuse at America’s Colleges and Universities,” is the result of more than four years of research, surveys, interviews, and focus groups. The study found that 1.8 million full-time college students (22.9 percent) meet the medical criteria for substance abuse and dependence — compared with 8.5 percent of the general population.

Regarding binge drinking, between 1993 and 2001 the proportion of students who binge drink frequently rose 16 percent; those who drink ten or more occasions in a month rose 25 percent; those who get drunk at least three times a month rose 26 percent; and those who drink to get drunk rose 21 percent.

Peter Rockholz, deputy commissioner at the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, is encouraging parents, college and university administrators, students, and policy makers to read the report.

“This culture of substance abuse is taking its toll in accidents, assaults, property damage, academic problems, illnesses, overdoses, injuries, mental health problems, risky sex, rape, and over 1,700 deaths on America’s college campuses each year,” Mr Rockholz pointed out. He said the report contains many specific recommendations for colleges and universities, parents and students, Greek and athletic organizations, policymakers and alcohol and tobacco merchants to take action to address this college culture of substance abuse.

The report can be found at www.casacolumbia.org.

To address this problem at the family level, parents can take steps to help ensure a safe spring season for their children.

“It’s important for parents to stay involved in their son or daughter’s decisionmaking, especially when it concerns alcohol and other drug use,” said Aliza Makuch, senior program coordinator for the Governor’s Prevention Partnership and co-chair of Connecticut’s Statewide Healthy Campus Initiative. “Young adults who have meaningful conversations with a parent or guardian regarding drugs and alcohol are 50 percent less likely to become involved in high-risk behavior.”

Tips for talking to your students, and information about college-aged alcohol consumption, can be found on the Statewide Healthy Campus Initiative website at www.preventionworksct.org/campus. Other helpful websites for parents and others include www.ctclearinghouse.org.

The Statewide Healthy Campus Initiative is a partnership of the Department of Mental Health and Addition Services, the Governor’s Prevention Partnership, the Department of Higher Education, and the Connecticut State University System, along with several other colleges and universities. The group works year-round to prevent high-risk alcohol use, drug use, and the negative consequences of high-risk decisions.

For more information about this initiative, call the Governor’s Prevention Partnership at 860-523-8042 or the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services at 860-418-6827.