Drunken driving connected to mental problems

Stockholm (IANS): Drunken driving is not just an indication of a deeply seated alcohol problem but is also very often connected to psychological disease and chronic criminal background, says a doctoral thesis presented at the Karolinska Institute (KI).

Psychologist Beata Hubicka has in collaboration with the Swedish traffic authority, Vagverket, and the police, carried out a nationwide study involving 1,200 drivers who were charged with drunken driving.

The suspect alcoholic offenders, along with a research group of 786 assuredly sober drivers, were called upon to answer a questionnaire on their alcohol consumption habits. The psychosocial and psychotic health condition of some of the drunken drivers was examined too.

"Earlier research in this area has mostly been undertaken in the US," Hubicka told IANS, after her dissertation at the KI. "However, it became essential to carry out an entirely Swedish study since we have different promille (alcohol in the blood permissible for driving) limits and different attitudes towards drunken driving compared to the US. Such variables have also to be taken into account when dealing with this problem in other countries."

The well-received study shows that "more than a half of the suspected alcohol abusers had earlier committed criminal offences. A large number among the abusers were also found to be suffering serious psychotic problems."

"Since such a large number have psychotic problems and a criminal background," says Hubicka, "one should not direct attention solely towards their alcohol problem in any preemptive efforts to resolve drunken driving".

Hubicka said: "The current limit for drunken driving of 0.2 promille (in Sweden, among the strictest globally) is based on physiological studies in which it has been observed and recorded that our capacity for reaction (reflexes) is dangerously impaired with such an alcohol level (in the blood). Since alcohol abuse is such a big risk factor (cause) for drunken criminality, the result of our study should perhaps form the basis for a reconsidered alcohol limit for driving. I would rather suggest that we follow the few countries that have established zero-tolerance."

One-Third of Americans Have an Addicted Relative

Nearly 1/3 of Americans have an immediate family member who has or have had an alcohol or drug abuse problem and almost half of those families have more than one member who had an addiction problem. For most of those families the most significant negative consequence of that addiction is the embarrassment or social stigma.

These finds were part of the "Attitudes Toward Addiction Survey" conducted by the Hazelden organization.

The telephone survey of 1,000 adults revealed some lingering stigma associated with alcoholism and drug addiction in spite of the fact 78% of those surveyed agreed that drug addiction is a chronic disease rather than a personal failing.

According to Hazelden, when survey participants were asked to describe people who have problems with drugs or alcohol included: "sinner," "irresponsible," "selfish, "stupid," "uncaring," "loser," "undisciplined," "pitiful," "pathetic," "weak," "criminal," "derelict," "washed up" and "crazy."

"What Hazelden's new survey brought home to me is that Americans understand addiction is a disease, yet much more work must be done to explain how effective treatment can be for addicts and to bring an end to the stigma that prevents addicts from pursuing treatment," said William Cope Moyers, executive director of Hazelden's Center for Public Advocacy in a news release.

The Prevalence of Addiction

Here are some of the survey findings about the prevalence of addiction:

* Nearly one-third of Americans reported past abuse of alcohol or drugs in their immediate family.

* Of those households with an immediate family member who had an addiction problem, 44% reported more than one family member with a drug problem.

* A third of the families which reported a drug problem in their immediate family say that a majority of their family members have problems with drugs.

* With one in six of the respondents dealing with substance abuse in their family, every member of the family has a problem with drugs or alcohol.

* When asked about extended family, virtually half of Americans surveyed reported three or more family members have experienced a problem with drugs during their lives.

Attitudes About Prevention, Treatment

The survey also revealed attitudes about prevention and treatment efforts:

* 79% percent feel the War on Drugs has not been successful.

* 83% agree that much more should be done to prevent addiction.

* 83% believe that first-time drug offenders should get chemical dependency treatment rather than prison time.

* 77 percent agree that many addicts who complete treatment go on to lead useful lives.

* 71% agree health insurance should cover addiction treatment, but most have no idea if their own insurance will pay.

As a result of the survey, Hazelden's Center for Public Advocacy will launch a public advocacy campaign in Washington, D.C. and across the United States this year.
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source: http://alcoholism.about.com

States Unleash New Ignition Lock Laws

Starting this month, drivers convicted of driving while intoxicated in at least six new states will face a hi-tech hurdle to repeat offenses: ignition interlocks. After a high profile national campaign, Mothers Against Drunk Driving and other organizations convinced several state legislatures to pass laws mandating the dashboard installation of small ignition interlock device activated by a breathalyzer.

“It’s amazingly inconvenient, “ David Malham of the Illinois MADD group told Associated Press. “But the flip side of the inconvenience is death.”

Will high technology really help keep drunk drivers off the streets and highways? Malham, quoted in the Chicago Tribune, insisted that “it’s not about changing human nature, it’s about science interfering and preventing reckless behavior.” Maltham also said he is looking forward to technology that will be able to sniff a car’s interior, scan the eyes of drivers, and test sweat on the steering wheel before allowing the driver to turn the key.

In addition to Illinois, states that passed laws requiring the use of ignition locks for drunken driving convictions of varying degrees include Nebraska, Colorado, Washington, and Alaska. Other states with similar but unevenly enforced laws on the books include South Carolina, Arizona, New Mexico, and Louisiana.

Illinois is attempting to work around the program’s most obvious flaws—the convicted drinker could drive someone else’s car, or get someone else to blow into the breath-monitoring device—by instituting heavy penalties for non-compliance if the driver is caught cheating.

Lined up in opposition to ignition lock legislation, thus far, is the American Beverage Institute, a lobby group for restaurant owners. In the AP article, the Institute’s Sarah Longwell objected to the fact that states might decide to apply the laws to people other than repeat offenders—to anyone who, on any given night, blows a 0.08 or a 0.10, the common denominators of alcohol intoxication in most states.

Sounding a bit more like the National Rifle Association (NRA) than perhaps it intended, the Beverage Institute offered a dire vision of a slippery slope: “We foresee a country in which you’re no longer able to have a glass of wine, drink a beer at a ball game or enjoy a champagne toast at a wedding. There will be a de facto zero tolerance policy imposed on people by their cars.”

My modest prediction: A tangle of state lawsuits and questions over civil liberties, the more so since many of the laws are first-pass efforts and subject to interpretation.

source: Addiction Inbox

Huesik: Korean for binge drinking

A classic South Korean working day usually ends up in Huesiks, binge drinking sessions cast as social events. But behind the drunken smiles lurks an alarming variety of health problems that stem from heavy drinking.

Night falls on Seoul as workers leave their offices. It is time for Huesiks, boozy meals shared by coworkers at least twice a week. Taking part in them is highly recommended as those who do not can find themselves quickly ostracized from the group.

This means drinking a lot; and quickly. Part of the aim is to find summon courage to lose one’s inhibition and criticize the boss. We follow one group as they treated a client in a Japanese restaurant. They are going to talk business. But, above all, they will raise toast after toast. That's already four in less than ten minutes.

Soju is Korean people’s favorite drink. It is made of rice, potatoes or barley, is very cheap and usually contains about 25% of alcohol. So, a few hours and several bars later, these employees aren’t exactly in professional shape anymore.

Having left the bar, these heavy drinkers drunkenly wait on subway platforms or stumble out onto Seoul’s streets. One businessman we come across has drunk one bottle of whisky every day for the last 20 years. Despite a recent recovery from stomach cancer, he remains a heavy drinker.

In Korea, warnings against heavy drinking are still very rare. Advertising is legal. Yet, for the local authorities, the cost of alcohol abuse is mounting. One in 10 korean adults suffers from various health problems stemming from heavy drinking. And it is not about to change as average alcohol consumption rose again in September.
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source: France 24

Task force could help stem underage college drinking

Colleges and universities should take lead on setting and enforcing rules on their campuses.

Stopping underage drinking on college campuses should be a top concern of parents and academia. In recent years, there have been tragic alcohol-related deaths, and something should be done to address this issue.

Yet, we agree with state Sen. Shirley Turner, D-Mercer, the solution is unlikely to be found in legislation that imposes a uniform fix for the state's many campuses. As Turner said, the universities and colleges should be allowed to set and enforce their own rules. If the problem spills off campus, there already are laws to handle underage drinkers.

Some academic leaders have proposed lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18, when people are considered adult in other areas of society, such as the health-care, criminal justice and military systems. The Amethyst Initiative, a group of 134 college presidents and chancellors, favor making it legal for their 18- to 20-year-old students to drink. Most now do so illegally and colleges have proved inadequate to stop this behavior.

Under federal law, states can set the legal drinking age for their residents, but would lose 10 percent of their federal highway funds. The federal penalty recognizes that young people too often are involved in drinking-and-driving accidents.

On the other hand, many European countries have a much lower drinking age than the United States but balance that with much tougher drunken driving laws. Generally, there are not higher rates of alcohol-related incidents among European youths than here.

It is an issue worthy of more study, as Turner has proposed. She and Senate President Dick Codey, D-Essex, support creating a task force to look into the issue. But lowering the drinking age probably won't be acceptable to many New Jerseyans, especially those who have lost a loved one in an alcohol-related incident. But that doesn't mean the whole issue should not be reviewed. Students, parents, educators and lawmakers need to have this conversation to figure out how to get students and others to act more responsibly.
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source: Courier Post Online

Vodka makers may have to pay for addicts' treatment

Amid criticism from alcohol producers, a bill was introduced in the lower house of the Russian parliament (Duma) according to which
producers of vodka and other alcoholic beverages will have to pay for the treatment of chronic alcoholics.

Lawmaker Viktor Zvagelsky of the ruling United Russia party has introduced the bill which will bound the producers of alcoholic beverages to bear the 'moral and financial responsibility' and pay for the treatment of chronic alcoholics, according to a report.

Zvagelsky proposes to set a mandatory mechanism for compensation of damage to health of citizens caused by consuming alcoholic drinks

Earlier last month, Russian interior minister Rashid Nurgaliyev had recommended to restore the Soviet-era system of forced treatment of alcohol abusers.

According to the lawmaker, the alcohol producers will have to pay approximately four roubles for per litre of vodka produced by them into a self-regulated fund to finance the network of clinics and sanatoria involved in the treatment of alcoholics.
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source: Times of India

Avoiding alcohol's temptations in 'overwhelming' war zone

Once each week, in a fluorescent-lit room in a stout building near the heart of Kandahar Air Field, a multinational mix of troops and civilians gather to take on a battle that can't be fought with conventional weapons.

Sitting around a table, or on overstuffed furniture, they talk about bad days, frustrating bosses and how it is that a fellow soldier can become a drunk on a dry base in a mostly dry country.

Called Sober in the Sand, the group is this base's own chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous. For many who spend much of the year living abroad in Afghanistan, their weekly meetings have become a lifeline to staying sober far from the supports of home.

Jennifer, a 31-year-old from Winnipeg, has been sober for 10 years. Still, when she arrived to work at the base five months ago as a civilian, she was anxious about the strain that living in a war zone might cause.

"It's not like I'm shaking for a drink all the time," she said.

But she added that the base, which serves as a temporary home for more than 10,000 people from dozens of countries and is the frequent target of insurgent rocket attacks, can be "overwhelming" at times.

"It's a really crazy place."

That craziness was tempered, though, when she walked into her first AA meeting.

Instantly, she felt she belonged.

"There's a base level of understanding between alcoholics. They know you, you know them. It's almost like family."

The group operates like most conventional AA groups, meeting once a week and setting up links between new recovering alcoholics and those with more sober years under their belts. But there are unconventional elements that come with operating in a war zone.

"Here we worry about our fellow alcoholics going out and not coming back alive, which is a little harder to deal with," said Ed, a 47-year-old mechanic from Midland, Ont.

Typically, the group has about five regular members, but has swelled to more than 15 at different times.

Often, the group will gather for special meetings if soldiers are coming through who are normally stationed off base at one of the smaller outposts.

"If they need a meeting, well, darn it all, somebody should be there," said Ed, adding that those who come to the AA group for support but have to leave to work off base are usually given literature, including copies of The Big Book, a step-by-step guide to getting sober that explains the Alcoholics Anonymous tradition.

"My book I was carrying around for 14 years went out to a forward operating base with them," Ed said. "If you have no meetings out there and guys at least have something to read, at least you have some comfort."

John, a 31-year-old U.S. Army soldier from the Bronx, said it took some work to find the AA meetings when he arrived on base.

At times the program has nearly faded away, largely because of the transience of people at the base. But it has always been revived.

"People are not only coming here to talk about problems with alcohol," he said. "We come here for peace of mind. I've actually had the opportunity to help people."

For that reason, no matter how many troops and contractors move on and off the base, the group will always exist, said Chuck, a 55-year-old civilian from Minnesota who with 26 years of sobriety, is the unofficial dean of Sober in the Sand.

"AA is a program of principles. If everybody shipped out, the next recovered alcoholic coming through Kandahar would initiate it again.

"This meeting will always be here after we've gone. The AA will keep reconstituting itself, just like the Taliban."
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source: Globe and Mail

Kicking Depression: Recognize underlying disorders, tackle them, too

By Christine Stapleton

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Oh that we could have just one mental illness afflict us at a time.

Many of us diagnosed with one mental illness have another lurking - often undiagnosed or untreated. Doctors call it "co-morbidity." Others call it "dual-diagnosis." I call it "unfair."

Two weeks ago I started sliding. Hours of feeling OK, then hours of feeling down. The OK hours slowly shrunk to OK minutes. The down hours became a day, then another and another. On the second down day the switch between my brain and stomach flicked off.

Three days later, I had already lost 5 pounds. A trainer at the gym told me I was getting too thin. A couple of my girlfriends invited me to dinner. Another threatened an intervention. I ate a sweet potato and a little cup of chicken soup.

My therapist calls this anorexia. I call it lack of appetite. It's not like I'm a waif you could blow over with a hair dryer. I just don't want to eat, and I weigh myself twice a day and track the numbers in my weight journal. Did I mention I don't eat wheat and very little refined sugar? What's the big deal? Apparently that's called an "eating disorder." It's just one of a few other "disorders" I deal with, like hypomania - a type of bipolar.

My brain plays dominoes with these disorders. A bout of mania knocks over the depression domino, which knocks over the anorexia domino, which knocks over the exercise-drug-alcohol addiction domino, which goes on and on.

It took decades for me to figure this out. It took even longer to realize that the chain-reaction that effortlessly topples the dominoes does not work in reverse. They won't automatically pop up if I manage to right just one.

Each disorder has its own treatment. Successfully treating one will not necessarily cure the other. A bipolar drug addict who gets clean is still going to have eye-popping mood swings, bursts of energy and paralyzing depression if the bipolar is not treated, too.

A food addict who smokes and gets treatment for her eating disorder but keeps smoking is still addicted to nicotine. Same with the alcoholic who cuts herself. She is not necessarily going to stop cutting just because she gets sober.

Like I said, it's not fair. It is even worse because many doctors don't understand this. They treat one illness but fail to diagnose the companion disorder(s). Then we blame the antidepressants or therapy for not working and we quit. Life becomes hell, all over again.

My solution: Surrender. Recognize the other disorders and treat them, too. I don't think of it as being a loser. I just joined the winning side.
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source: Palm Beach Post

Cocaine usage continues to rise, report finds

One in 20 Irish people and almost one in 10 young people has taken cocaine, a major all-Ireland study of the use of the drug has established.

Men are twice as likely to use cocaine as women and regular and even daily use of the drug is increasing, according to the drug prevalence study carried out for the National Advisory Committee on Drugs (NACD).

North Dublin, where almost 16 per cent of young people reported use of the drug, emerges as the country’s cocaine blackspot, but prevalence rates are rising steeply throughout the country.

Use of the drug by 15-34-year-olds has risen five-fold in the north-eastern counties over the past five years, and more than three-fold in the midlands and the west.

The vast majority of cocaine users start taking their drug in their early twenties and the most popular means of obtaining it is from friends and family, the study finds.

One in four people said they knew someone who took cocaine, compared to 14 per cent in the last all-Ireland survey carried out in 2002/03.

The study reveals that cocaine users are taking the drug more often, with one-in-four users snorting the drug once a week and 7 per cent reporting daily use. No-one reported daily use in the earlier survey.

Overall lifetime use now stands at 5.3 per cent, up from 3 per cent in the last survey. Some 1.7 per cent of respondents reported using the drug in the previous year, up from 1.1 per cent, and 0.5 per cent said they had taken cocaine in the previous month, up from 0.3 per cent.

“While these figures are of concern, we should not lose sight of the fact that they are reasonably low and that any perception that ‘everyone is at it’ is far from the true situation,” commented Minister of State with responsibility for drugs strategy, John Curran.

The survey also shows that cocaine use varies greatly between different regions, with the highest rates recorded in the more densely populated areas in the east of the country, roughly from Louth to Cork. “The challenge is to ensure that the lower rates are kept at such levels while the problem is tackled comprehensively in the areas of higher use.

Mr Curran said the risks attached to cocaine use were often ignored or underestimated by users. “Cocaine use is linked to heart conditions, strokes and to various other physical complaints that vary depending on the route of administration of the drug. Frequent (or long-term) use of cocaine can also have a powerful effect on the user’s mental health, through depression, anxiety, agitation, compulsive behaviour and paranoia.”

He defended the efforts being made to tackle drug misuse, pointing out that the over €61 million was allocated to the area in last week’s Estimates. The Government is spending over €200 million on measures aimed directly at problem drug use, he said.

Almost 7,000 people were surveyed north and south for the study, which was carried out between October 2006 and May 2007.
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source: © 2008 irishtimes.com

Alcohol admissions triple at central London hospital

Adult alcohol-related admissions to an inner London hospital have tripled in the last four years, according to new research.

Trends in admissions were studied at the emergency departments and in medical admissions at two inner London hospitals – University College Hospital and the Whittington Hospital from 2004-8.

The total number of adult in-patient admissions at the two hospitals rose from 998 in 2004-05, to 2,690 in 2007-08. Adult attendances linked to alcohol in the emergency departments rose too - from 2,560 in 2004-05 to 3,434 in 2007-08.

Dr Andrew Smith, lead researcher, and colleagues found the figures for University College Hospital demonstrated a clear trend. This was not the case with the Whittington data.

University College Hospital is located in an area with a high concentration of pubs and nightclubs whilst the Whittington is not, which might be the reason for the increase in alcohol-related attendances at this hospital, they suggested.

Separately, they examined trends in teenage alcohol-related presentations. No increase in hospital admissions was observed, although the number of A&E attendances for under-18s rose from 98 in 2004/05 to 165 to 2007/08.

‘This increase coincides approximately with the change in the licensing laws. While under-18s might not generally be expected to be drinking in licensed premises, the law changes also affected off-licenses which may be of relevance,’ said Dr Smith.

The Licensing Act 2003 came into effect in November 2005. This change appears to have been paralleled by an increase in the presentation of alcohol-related illnesses in these two hospitals, conclude the authors.

‘A three-fold increase in the total number of adult admissions is noted at one hospital which if repeated at other centres, would have significant ramifications on NHS resources if this trend continues,’ they added.

The data were presented at the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Faculty of General and Community Psychiatry Annual Meeting in Manchester today.

It follows last week’s calls for strong public policy measures to counter the alcohol problem in society. Dr Nick Sheron and colleagues said changes to price and availability of alcohol would work better than clinical treatments or Government initiatives to cut alcohol-related harm.

Writing in Gut, they say evidence from the WHO, the Academy of Medical Sciences and the EU, show that the best way of reducing consumption and alcohol-related harm is to tackle price.
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source: On Medica

A tough-on-crime approach to justice that actually works

Instead of jailing repeat petty criminals, we should send them to mandatory addiction treatment

In a season of tough talk on crime, I propose a challenge to our political leaders. In Canada, one group of criminals commits a disproportionate number of crimes that we could easily reduce with more coercive sentencing. However, our usual form of coercion -- imprisonment -- doesn't work for them. They need a different kind of sentence. But to make that happen -- and to significantly reduce the number of crimes they commit -- would require will and wisdom that our legislators can't seem to muster.

The legal system refers to these men -- they are almost all men -- as chronic offenders. What everyone knows, but the justice system doesn't acknowledge, is that they are also drug addicts, hooked on heroin or crack cocaine. They steal not for gain but to support their addiction, to pay for their next fix.

This has nothing to do with getting high. For an addict, the point is to avoid the effects of withdrawal, which in the case of heroin can include cramps and muscle spasms, fever, cold sweats and goose bumps (hence the phase "cold turkey"), insomnia, vomiting, diarrhea and a condition called "itchy blood," which can cause compulsive scratching so severe that it leads to open sores. For addicts, drug use is not a lifestyle choice that's easy to change.

Many have been addicted for their entire adult lives, and as a result have spent half their lives behind bars, serving dozens of sentences for minor crimes. These are the "revolving door" criminals -- arrested, tried, sentenced to a few weeks or months, then dumped back out on the street, only to be arrested, tried and convicted again a few weeks later.

Canada has hundreds of criminals like that, mainly in the larger cities. Vancouver alone recently identified 379. According to a report by the Vancouver Police Department, the vast majority were addicted to drugs or alcohol. Many also suffer from a mental disorder, generally untreated. Between 2001 and 2006, Vancouver's few hundred chronic offenders, as a group, were responsible for 26,755 police contacts -- more than 5,000 contacts per year, 14 a day. The costs are staggering. Arrests, prosecutions and incarcerations end up costing some $20,000 per criminal per month -- per month! There has to be a better way.

Punishment alone is not it, though, for a couple of reasons. For one, the idea of punishing criminals is based at least partly on the concept of specific deterrence. You steal, we lock you up. Applied most strongly to property crimes -- which is what these offenders mainly commit -- specific deterrence assumes that the criminal is a rational actor who will consider: Is it worth it? And in fact, specific deterrence often works; many offenders really do stop committing crimes after fairly short jail sentences.

But not addicts.

The problem is the presumption of a rational actor. That is exactly what we do not have with drug addicts, who do not -- usually cannot -- stop to consider the likely punishment for a crime they are about to commit. They see only the escape from the more immediate and dire punishments of drug deprivation. By comparison, the threat of being caught and thrown in jail is nothing.

As well, because chronic offenders tend to commit minor crimes and draw short sentences -- say, 30 to 90 days for theft -- their lives shift constantly between jail and the streets.

We could use longer sentences to "warehouse" chronic offenders -- the American "three strikes and you're out" approach. But long-term imprisonment would be a very high-cost way to deal with what is really a public health issue.

And there's the crux of the problem.

The criminal justice system is not designed to treat addicts. While prisons do provide some drug treatment, it is almost always short-term and underfunded.

Clearly, Canadians need more protection from chronic offenders than we are now getting.

With chronic offenders, we have an issue of both criminal law and public health. Addicted offenders must be required to undergo serious, long-term drug treatment.

Since 1996, Alberta law has required minors with an apparent alcohol or drug addiction to participate, with or without their consent, in an assessment and treatment program. Saskatchewan and Manitoba have similar legislation and even allow parents of drug-addicted children to ask a court to require treatment, whether or not the child is in trouble with the law.

Although the research is scant, mandatory treatment does appear to have about the same success rate as voluntary treatment. A 1970s American study looked at the effectiveness of methadone maintenance treatment for those who entered the program under high, moderate or no coercion and found no significant difference in outcomes for the three groups.

Given the costs of incarceration -- not counting the costs to future victims -- paying for mandatory drug treatment for them hardly seems an issue, even if it only works some of the time. As for whether mandatory treatment is somehow inhumane, how humane is it to sentence these addicts to punishments we know don't work and then dump them back on the street no better than before?

Politics aside, Canadians deserve evidence-based criminal justice policies that actually reduce crime. Our challenge is to make the tough choices that move beyond "tough on crime" rhetoric and produce real change.
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source: James C. Morton and The Ottawa Citizen

Alcohol-related arrests up at IU Southeast

The Indiana University Southeast Campus Police Department is now dealing with a problem many campuses have had for years — alcohol offenses.

For the first time, IUS offers on-campus housing for students this year. With residents comes more students trying to test the limits.

Less than two months since the residence halls opened, campus police have already made nine alcohol-related arrests. Several others have been cited or given referrals. By comparison, IUS reported only two on-campus alcohol violations and six referrals from 2004 until 2006. The 2007 crime reports will be released next month.

“This is something we’ve never really had to deal with before,” said Dennis Simon, campus chief of police. “We’ve had very few arrests in the past.”

In fact, the police department is in the process of changing its crime reporting system so that an arrest log will be available in the campus police office. In the past, there were so few arrests they never had to worry about that.

So far, two arrests were made and three citation issued for minor consumption. There have been four operating while intoxicated arrests, two disorderly conduct arrests and one possession of marijuana arrest.

Simon believes the number of alcohol violations will continue to drop as students realize campus police and school administrators will not tolerate alcohol on campus.

“Problems have decreased significantly after the first two weeks,” he said. “We indicated to people that you can’t get away with breaking the rules.”

Most of the problems have involved non-students visiting students on campus, Simon said. Six out of nine people arrested were not students.

The university prohibits alcohol, tobacco and weapons on campus. The only exception is when alcohol is allowed at certain events approved by the chancellor.

Simon met with Floyd County Prosecutor Keith Henderson earlier this year, and both agreed to let the school handle minor offenses like alcohol consumption. In those situations, campus police will issue referrals and Student Affairs decides the discipline. The range of penalties include probation and suspension or even removal from campus housing for repeat offenders.

“We want students to have a good college experience,” Simon said.

Simon also thanked the Community Advisors, students who are selected to monitor residence halls, saying they had been “vigilant.”
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source: News and Tribune

Don’t wait for cops to detect alcohol abuse

Rightful outrage over dangerous drunken drivers has fueled new demands for tougher laws and penalties.

And who can argue?

But with Wisconsin on top of most lists for binge drinking or drunken driving, you know there are many more folks out there who are risks but have yet to become a statistic or headline.

So let’s not overlook another, better way to get at the nub of the problem.

A pilot prevention program, if broadened as many respected medical associations say it should be, would screen many more people for problem drinking or drug use before it’s too late. It would intervene with information and, where needed, treatment, before these problem drinkers end up in highway carnage or handcuffs.

It would start at the doctor's office.

One of my doctors requires me to complete an annual survey that asks, among other things, about alcohol or drug consumption. The trouble is, most doctors don't have time to talk about it. They can barely deal with your high blood pressure or arthritis or other painful ailment as it is.

Waukesha's Family Practice Center is one of 20 clinics participating in the promising prevention effort through the Wisconsin Initiative to Promote Healthy Lifestyles, financed with a $12 million, five-year federal grant. (See www.wiphl.comfor information.)

Betzaida Silva-Rydz is the specially trained health educator at the Waukesha clinic. She describes a woman who came to the clinic for medical issues and, like others, completed four screening questions - like when was the last time she had four drinks in one sitting.

After she was provided information, without judgment, the woman recognized that both she and her husband had a problem in ways they hadn't considered, affecting their health, their family, their finances.

Through a few more sessions, the couple saw their way to changes that put more effort into family and less into social drinking.

It's the kind of story repeated last week at a meeting of health care professionals where early screening and intervention were hailed by the likes of Milwaukee Commissioner of Health Bevan Baker and Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm.

Baker, quoting his wife, said it's not just taking the bull by the horns - which can leave you gored - it's removing the horns.

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism says one in four Wisconsinites is a problem drinker or drug user, but only 10% to 20% of them get help. The state estimates the consequences cost $5 billion a year in health care, social services and criminal justice. One brief screening and intervention saves $1,000, a state study reports.

The National Commission on Prevention Priorities, which tries to identify the biggest bang for the buck in public health spending, has an eye-opening ranking of how to best make us healthier:

First, men older than 40 and women older than 50 should take a daily aspirin for cardiovascular health. Second, children should be immunized. Third, help people quit smoking.

And fourth? Have routine alcohol screening and intervention. It's ahead of cholesterol screening, blood pressure screening. even cancer screenings.

It's that important. So more clinics should get involved. More insurance plans should cover it. And more people desperate to do something about drunken drivers should demand it.
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source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Doctors can't treat your drinking problem

The rise in alcohol abuse should be a matter for social policy not the GP's surgery

‘Your GP is the first place to turn if you are concerned about your drinking.’ This was the concluding advice of a recent eight-page Guardian supplement devoted to ‘Britain’s harmful relationship with alcohol’. Once regarded as a manifestation of moral turpitude, excessive drinking is now defined as a medical condition. GPs have taken the place of evangelical ministers at the head of the modern temperance crusade. The fact that these same doctors come second only to publicans in terms of death from alcohol-induced cirrhosis of the liver has not diminished medical authority in this area.

The rise of GPs in dealing with alcohol problems is based on claims for the effectiveness of ‘brief interventions’. This means doctors giving patients a quick, but empathetic, lecture on the adverse health consequences of alcohol before advising them to stop. But close scrutiny of these studies reveals that their high success rates are achieved at a cost. They exclude patients who are alcohol dependent (including only those deemed to have ‘hazardous’ levels of drinking). They follow up for a short period (usually less than 12 months). And they define success in terms of a reduction in total consumption or episodes of binge drinking (rather than achieving abstinence).

If doctors suggest to patients drinking over the odds that they should consider cutting back, they do, for a while, before resuming their old habits. A desperate resort to old-fashioned medical paternalism? – yes. A solution to ‘Britain's harmful relationship with alcohol’? – no.

Prominent doctors and medical organisations instinctively recognise the ineffectiveness of medical intervention – and indeed of medical treatment. They have campaigned for prohibitionist measures to deal with excessive drinking. No newspaper or television feature on alcohol is now complete without a leading liver specialist, psychiatrist or GP demanding more regulations on the sale of alcohol. They call for banning advertising, raising prices and for tougher policing of licensing laws. But if doctors cannot treat alcoholism in their surgeries, why should anybody accept their proposals in the sphere of social policy? After all, they have no expertise there whatsoever.

The notion that doctors can treat the nation’s alcohol problem is a delusion that is convenient for the medical profession and for politicians eager to respond to the latest moral panic. But it marks an evasion of the real issues. Self-destructive patterns of alcohol consumption express personal and social demoralisation. This is not susceptible to medical – or political – quick-fixes.
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source: The Times

Understanding Addictions

CAMDEN (Sep 22): “Understanding Addictions” will be the subject of a free evening program open to anyone in the Midcoast area and presented by the First Congregational Church, Camden, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Thursday, September 25.

“’Understanding Addictions” is intended both for people who may be suffering from an addiction and for individuals who would like to be more helpful to a family member or a friend who is struggling with addiction,” said program leader, Mary Ellen Ostherr who works as a substance abuse therapist for Mid-Coast Mental Health and also has a private practice. She has worked in the field helping individuals and families with substance abuse and recovery for 15 years.

“Part of the program will be about how to understand the signs of addiction and what you can do about it as a friend or family member. The program will also cover how to recognize enabling behaviors and what to do to help stop those behaviors that can contribute to someone’s addiction,” she said. “An important part of the program will cover how we can reach out and help others.”

Denial—how to recognize it and how to deal with it as a friend or family member will also be covered, Ostherr said.

Maine currently leads the nation in per capita addiction to opiates and the state is number two in alcohol addiction. Factors that make the problem worse for the people of Maine, she said, include the long winters, the ready availability of drugs and alcohol, and the high risk nature of some jobs in Maine.

It is easy to get hurt and take prescription drugs as part of the rehabilitation, she said. Good people can find that weeks later they may develop an addiction. Another factor is the Internet. There are now websites that make it all too easy to get prescription medications. Some of these websites have doctors standing by who will write the prescription.

“Understanding Addictions” is offered through the “Live and Learn” series of free seminars and workshops presented for residents of the Midcoast area by the First Congregational Church, Camden.

“Understanding Addictions” will be held in the Mayflower Room of the church at 55 Elm Street in Camden. Participants should park in the Church parking lot behind the Church and enter through the door on the parking lot side. The Church is handicapped accessible.
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source: http://waldo.villagesoup.com/

Younger drinkers risk ruining their lives

As a college president, I have many reasons to be concerned about the consumption of alcohol by my students. Perhaps the most clear-cut reasons are legal. Students who consume alcohol under the age of 21 are breaking state law. Furthermore, even those who are of legal drinking age might cause civil liability to accrue to the college if they drink to excess and cause harm to themselves or others.

However, the most important issues surrounding excessive and underage student drinking are, for me and my fellow presidents, not legal. Of much greater concern are the potential adverse consequences to the students themselves. Nationally almost 2,000 college students between the ages of 18 and 24 die each year from unintentional injuries in which alcohol was a factor. Additional hundreds of thousands of students are injured; many of them seriously. These deaths and injuries are avoidable.

Every empirical study I have seen in 25 years of studying the issue in Canada and the United States confirms that there is a direct relationship between the legal drinking age and the incidence of alcohol-related death and injury. For that reason, I would not support any reduction in the legal drinking age. This was one of the alternatives posited by the Amethyst Initiative as a way of combating underage and binge drinking. It is unfortunate that the drinking age has attracted the most attention, especially since it seems doubtful that lowering the drinking age would lead to any appreciable amelioration of the most serious consequences.

In the first place, patterns of high-risk drinking behavior are already typically well-established before students arrive at college. Findings from the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study, published in the Journal of American College Health (Volume 50, No.5, 223-236), state that in 2001, 43.6 percent of underage college students were classified as binge drinkers, meaning consumption of at least five drinks in a row for men or four drinks in a row for women during the two weeks before completion of the study questionnaire. The vast majority of these began drinking in high school and, increasingly, underage drinking and binge drinking are regularly occurring as low as the eighth grade or earlier.

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse has found that the reported first use of alcohol went from age 17 1/2 in 1965 to 14 in 2003. Research further shows that the earlier students begin consuming alcohol, the more likely they will engage in behavior harmful to themselves and others.

Clearly this problem is as wide-ranging as the adverse consequences it brings about. Unsafe sexual practices, sexual abuse, health problems, drunk driving, property damage, vandalism, assault and alcohol dependence can all be added to the list.

And then there is the often less visible but very real matter of academic consequences. In the 1980s I reviewed thousands of files from students applying to Canadian law schools. Hundreds of those revealed a similar pattern: poor grades in the freshman year, a modest GPA increase in the sophomore year and then substantial improvement in the junior and senior years. Usually no explanation would be given for this other than a vague reference to "problems of adjustment."

Requests for a more detailed explanation typically yielded a rueful account of how the first year and a half of college were spent in a beery fog before reality intervened. Sadly too late for those whose grades, averaged over four years, were uncompetitive for law school or graduate school and who had to lower their expectations as a result. What a waste of human capital, individually sad but cumulatively tragic.

How do we as a society deal with this? Senate President Richard Codey has asked New Jersey's colleges to provide details of their alcohol policies. It is a fair request and one to which we should be glad to respond given the extensive policy frameworks, policing regimens, educational programs and health intervention measures we have developed. More importantly, it holds out the opportunity to frame the discussion properly.

Why are so many — but by no means all — college students acculturated to abusing alcohol? It can't just be about "adjustment" and new-found freedom since many of our students are sophisticated and experienced in ways that previous generations were not. We also need to go further and ask why alcohol abuse has been matched by a similar abuse of prescription pain relievers, tranquilizers, stimulants and sedatives. And why are these drugs so accessible?

I and my fellow presidents look forward to making progress in answering these questions.
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Dr. Peter P. Mercer is president of Ramapo College of New Jersey.
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source: My Central Jersey, http://www.mycentraljersey.com

Drug addicts shun mobile needle exchange

Far fewer needles handed out and returned since fixed-site exchange was closed

Victoria's mobile needle exchange is handing out far fewer needles to addicts than its fixed-site predecessor, statistics released yesterday show.

The experiences of Peter, who has used both services, might explain why.

Before the Cormorant Street needle exchange closed on May 31, Peter picked up a supply of clean needles every day.

"I had my routine of going down there," the 32-year-old cocaine and heroin addict, who declined to give his last name, said last night as he sat on the grass outside the Our Place shelter on Pandora Avenue. "Now I have to chase the mobile exchange all over the streets in a 10-block radius and I miss them sometimes and I end up going without clean needles."

Needle exchanges are promoted as a service that reduces the spread of disease among addicts by providing them with clean syringes to inject their drugs. But critics have also suggested that exchanges encourage illicit drug use.

A report released yesterday shows the number of needles supplied by the mobile exchange is down 23 per cent, from about 35,000 a month at the fixed site to 27,000 in August from the mobile unit.

Needles returned amount to just 40 per cent of those going out, a sharp drop from the 70 per cent return rate at the Cormorant Street exchange.

The figures were released by the Vancouver Island Health Authority and AIDS Vancouver Island in a summary of the first three months of the mobile service.

The Cormorant Street needle exchange closed after neighbours complained about illegal drug activity. The mobile service is supposed to be a stop-gap measure until a new permanent site can be located.

A decrease in needles coming back could indicate a number of things, said Katrina Jensen, executive director for AIDS Vancouver Island. "There are a number of factors, one is that they're disposing of them in other ways, like putting them in the garbage," said Jensen. Another possibility is that clients are keeping them and haven't used them yet, she said.

"Some clients may be taking extra syringes to keep them going for several months, and that's why we're not seeing those ones come back. It could also be that clients are using their own syringes and refusing ours."

There haven't been reports of a spike in the number of syringes discarded on the streets, said Jensen.

Aside from the syringes, clients aren't taking part in counselling services to the extent they did at the permanent site. There is no privacy and those working on the mobile service don't have the time, said Jensen.

"Due to the public nature of the mobile service a lot of clients aren't comfortable engaging in long conversations with workers. They just want to get their stuff and be gone."

Concern is mounting over how the mobile service will fare when cooler weather sends illicit drug users indoors, Jensen said.

Victoria Coun. Charlayne Thornton-Joe is concerned by the decrease in the number of needles exchanged by the mobile service.

"It concerns me that a major city does not have a fixed site," Thornton-Joe said. "It's a loss. I've always been an advocate for a fixed site which offers support and services."

Thornton-Joe has discussed the issue at meetings with the Downtown Service Providers and the clean and safe committee of the Downtown Victoria Business Association.

Thornton-Joe would like to see statistics from other local groups who hand out or take back needles. Some groups take in needles, but don't give them out, she explained.

The councillor would also like to see statistics on addicts' increased use of crack pipes, instead of needles.

"I'm hearing from street nurses that people are re-using needles and health issues are going to increase because of that," said Thornton-Joe.

Back on the grass outside Our Place, Peter pulled up his pant leg to show an abscess on his leg that became infected two weeks ago after he injected drugs with a dirty needle. The abscess required surgery at Royal Jubilee Hospital. But because he only runs into the mobile exchange service about every three days, Peter said he continues to put his health at risk.

"An hour ago, I had to use a dirty needle to suck dope out of a spoon and transfer it into another dirty needle and put it in my arm," he said.

Then by chance, five minutes before speaking to the Times Colonist, Peter ran into the mobile needle exchange and took a handful of syringes.

"Here's a lost soul looking for one right now," he said, handing a syringe to a young girl who sat down beside him. "If I don't give her one, she'll find one in the sewers."
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source: © Times Colonist (Victoria) 2008

Drinkers fall into 'nine groups'

The government believes it has identified nine types of heavy drinker as it launches a new alcohol campaign.

Research by the Department of Health in England with focus groups found heavy drinkers often fell into one of a number of categories.

These ranged from de-stress and depressed drinkers to people who boozed because of boredom or to bond.

Experts said helping people to understand the reasons for their drinking habits was "very useful".

The nine types of heavy drinker

The research showed that those drinking heavily - defined as consuming 35 units a week for women, 50 for men, which is twice the recommended limit - did so for a variety of reasons.

For example, de-stress drinkers were defined as people in pressured jobs who used alcohol to relax.

Whereas it said bonding drinkers could be anyone in society who had hectic social lives and lost track of their drinking.

The research was done to inform a new drive by ministers to crack down on heavy drinkers.

A pilot is being run in the north west of England over the coming months to specifically target heavy drinkers.

Over 900,000 households will receive leaflets through the post highlighting the link between drinking and conditions such as cancer and liver disease.

The campaign is focusing on adults aged over 35 who fall into the nine drinking categories.

Risk

Along with the information about disease risk, people will be given details about where they can go to get help.

This will include a website where they can calculate their own individual risk from drinking and get access to a self-help manual. A telephone helpline will also be set up.

The government hopes the tailored approach will help 4,000 people in the region to reduce their drinking within a year.

If it is successful, officials hope to roll it out to other parts of England.

Public health minister Dawn Primarolo admitted these heavy drinkers were a "tough one to crack".

But she added: "This is a totally fresh approach to helping people understand the effects of their drinking habits and help them make changes for the better."

Alcohol Concern chief executive Don Shenker said: "This type of marketing is very useful.

"In order to get people to examine their drinking they need to become aware of why they are doing it and what motivates them."

The Nine Types of Drinker

Name Characteristics Key motivations

Depressed drinker | Life in a state of crisis eg recently bereaved, divorced or in financial crisis | Alcohol is a comforter and a form of self-medication used to help them cope

De-stress drinker | Pressurised job or stressful home life leads to feelings of being out of control and burdened with responsibility | Alcohol is used to relax, unwind and calm down and to gain a sense of control when switching between work and personal life. Partners often support or reinforce behaviour by preparing drinks for them

Re-bonding drinker | Relevant to those with a very busy social calendar | Alcohol is the ‘shared connector' that unifies and gets them on the same level. They often forget the time and the amount they are consuming

Conformist drinker | Traditional guys who believe that going to the pub every night is ‘what men do' | Justify it as ‘me time'. The pub is their second home and they feel a strong sense of belonging and acceptance within this environment

Community drinker | Drink in fairly large social friendship groups | The sense of community forged through the pub-group. Drinking provides a sense of safety and security and gives their lives meaning. It also acts a social network

Boredom drinker | Typically single mums or recent divorcees with restricted social life | Drinking is company, making up for an absence of people. Drinking marks the end of the day, perhaps following the completion of chores

Macho drinker | Often feeling under-valued, disempowered and frustrated in important areas of their life | Have actively cultivated a strong ‘alpha male' that revolves around their drinking ‘prowess'. Drinking is driven by a constant need to assert their masculinity and status to themselves and others

Hedonistic drinker | Single, divorced and/or with grown up children | Drinking excessively is a way of visibly expressing their independence, freedom and ‘youthfulness' to themselves. Alcohol used to release inhibitions

Border dependents | Men who effectively live in the pub which, for them, is very much a home from home | A combination of motives, including boredom, the need to conform, and a general sense of malaise in their lives
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source: BBC News

Feeling thirsty or dying for drink?

It is Northern Ireland's drug of choice, but our relationship with alcohol can be problematic.

BBC presenter William Crawley has taken a look at the unique drink culture in the television documentary Dying For A Drink.

Made by Doubleband Films, director and producer Brian Henry Martin outlines the challenge set to the presenter.

As an experienced documentary filmmaker for Doubleband Films, I have made films over the past few years on many big and powerful subjects, everything from the Normandy landings on D-Day to the Heysel stadium disaster.

But no subject has daunted me more than what I faced in Dying for a Drink, this society's strange and obsessive relationship with alcohol.

Firstly, the question was where to begin?

From the outside, alcohol is this society's drug of choice, it lubricates every part of our lives. And then secondly, where to stop with such a huge subject?

Ultimately, the answer for our documentary Dying For A Drink lay in the approach.

We wanted to take the issue of this society's relationship with alcohol out of the daily news, out of the tabloid headlines and take a more measured approach. But is our drinking already out of control?

The use and abuse of alcohol is a rapidly growing problem in Northern Ireland.

We have doubled the amount of alcohol we drink in 20 years, the number of alcohol related deaths has also doubled in the same period and we have cut the price of alcohol, so that it is now cheaper in some cases than water.

In this timely, authored documentary, William Crawley sets out on a personal journey to explore our curious and frequently unhealthy relationship with alcohol and to consider the impact that it has on us all - as individuals and as a society.

William meets people from all sides of the alcohol debate, who talk frankly about how alcohol has affected their lives.

These are ordinary people with extraordinary attitudes towards drink; people like young teenage pioneers taking the pledge never to drink alcohol for the rest of their lives; people like the chronic alcoholics of a wet hostel whose drastic drinking habits reveal a lifetime's addiction and people like the sophisticated drinkers at a social wine tasting who drink alcohol not for the affect but for the taste.

Along with leading medical experts in Northern Ireland like Dr Neil McDougall, Consultant Hepatologist at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Dr Cathal Cassidy from the Royal College of Psychiatrists and Professor Mahen Varma, Consultant Cardiologist, at the Erne Hospital, these range of people with very different experiences and opinions provide the film with a revealing perspective on our relationship with alcohol.

It was important for me as a filmmaker, to set William a personal challenge over the course of the film.

His challenge was to abstain from alcohol for one month; five completely dry weeks.

We wanted to see what happens when someone in our society completely removes alcohol from their lives. The challenge proved to be more difficult and life changing than William first thought.

For the month long booze free challenge William recorded his own tee-total video diary at home with both surprising and compelling results.

And at the end of the abstaining challenge - and the film - William has the choice to drink alcohol again or not.

On the final day of filming, when William was poured a pint of the finest Hilden Brewery beer, we genuinely did not know what decision he was going to make.

For me, the biggest revelation from this journey to the bottom of the bottle - was this society's all or nothing attitude towards alcohol.

We are one of the largest consumers of alcohol in Europe with an ever increasing binge drinking problem, but also with a record number of teetotallers, people young and old completely abstaining from alcohol.

It would appear that the middle ground, which some of us may have witnessed abroad, responsible, enjoyable, healthier drinking (maybe even with food around the family table!) has passed most of us in Northern Ireland by.

Dying For a Drink is a documentary that will touch the lives of practically all viewers, as it is about the role that alcohol has in all our lives.

We want this film not to be the end of the discussion, but to be the starting point for a debate about our relationship with alcohol.
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source: BBC News

Curbing Binge Drinking Takes Group Effort

Every state has a minimum drinking age of 21, and the vast majority of college students are younger than that. Yet drinking, and in particular drinking to get drunk, remains a major health and social problem on campuses. Car crashes and other accidental injuries, sexual assaults, fights, community violence, academic failure and deaths from an overdose of alcohol are among the consequences.

College students spend about $5.5 billion a year on alcohol, more than they spend on books, soft drinks and other beverages combined. Alcohol is a factor in the deaths of about 1,700 college students each year.

The consequences can be particularly severe when people binge drink, a drinking pattern adopted by 44 percent of college students, national surveys have shown. Binge drinking is defined as consuming five or more drinks for men or four or more for women in a row, usually within two hours.

“Most alcohol-related harms experienced by college students occur among drinkers captured by the five/four measure of consumption,” Henry Wechsler of the Harvard School of Public Health and Toben F. Nelson of the University of Minnesota wrote in July in The Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

A petition circulating among college presidents seeks to lower the drinking age to 18 on the theory that it would reduce the number of students who binge drink beyond the boundaries of college campuses. But opponents say there is no hard evidence for this belief and a better plan would be to change the drinking culture on campus.

About half of college binge drinkers arrive on campus having engaged in similar behavior in high school; an equal number acquire this behavior in college, Elissa R. Weitzman of Harvard and colleagues reported.

Every year, tens of thousands of college students wind up in emergency rooms suffering from the life-threatening effects of alcohol intoxication. And every year, about a dozen students, including some of the best and brightest and most athletically talented, die from acute alcohol poisoning. In one study of students who suffered alcohol-related injuries, 21 percent reported consuming eight or more drinks in a row.

Although Greek houses, which have the highest rates of binge drinking, are infamous for a free-flowing alcohol culture, studies have found that student athletes and sports fans are also among the heaviest drinkers, often gathering to drink to oblivion after an athletic event.

A Community Approach

A concerted effort has been made in the last decade to define the factors that prompt binge drinking on campuses and devise effective methods to combat it. What has become most obvious to researchers is that colleges cannot achieve this on their own.

“Basically, having programs to reduce binge drinking on college campuses in the absence of broad-based community interventions to do likewise may be a bit like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic,” said Dr. Timothy S. Naimi of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study, which began in 1993, has identified several environmental and community factors that encourage binge drinking. Dr. Wechsler, who directed the study, said in an interview that high-volume alcohol sales, for example, and promotions in bars around campuses encourage drinking to excess.

“Some sell alcohol in large containers, fishbowls and pitchers,” he said. “There are special promotions: women’s nights where the women can drink free; 25-cent beers; two drinks for the price of one; and gut-busters, where people can drink all they want for one price until they have to go to the bathroom. Sites with these kinds of promotions have more binge drinking.

“Price is an issue,” he added. “It can be cheaper to get drunk on the weekend than to go to a movie.”

Although it is a college’s duty to educate students about the effects of alcohol and the risks of drinking too much, “education by itself doesn’t work,” Dr. Wechsler said. “You must attack the supply side as well as the demand side.”

More than half the alcohol outlets surrounding colleges that participated in the Harvard study offered promotions with price discounts, and nearly three-fourths that served alcohol on the premises had price discounts on weekends.

The study found that the sites of heaviest drinking by college students were off-campus bars and parties held off-campus and at fraternity and sorority houses.

Strong Policies Work

Among the factors associated with lower levels of drinking were strong state and local drunken-driving policies aimed at youths and young adults, as well as state alcohol-control policies like keg registration and laws restricting happy hours, open containers in public, beer sold in pitchers and billboards and other types of alcohol advertising.

“College sports events should not be sponsored by alcohol purveyors,” Dr. Wechsler said.

Community measures that helped to curtail binge drinking during the eight-year course of the study included a limit on alcohol outlets near campus, mandatory training for beverage servers, a crackdown on unlicensed alcohol sales and greater monitoring of alcohol outlets to curtail under-age drinking and excessive consumption by legal drinkers.

Campus practices that resulted in small but significant reductions in binge drinking included greater supervision of fraternities and sororities and more stringent accreditation requirements for Greek houses, policies to notify parents when students have trouble with alcohol, an increase in substance-free residence halls and more alcohol-free activities like movies and dances, especially on weekend nights.

But, Dr. Wechsler said, “college presidents can’t do it alone. They need help from legislative and community leaders. Alcohol is sold and consumed in the community. Residents need to get together to get it under control.”

What Parents Can Do

Dr. Wechsler urged that parents “put pressure on schools.” They should ask officials at the schools their children attend, or plan to attend, what they are doing to control drinking — especially binge drinking. When visiting schools, parents should check out the quality of life in the dorms. If they detect problems suggestive of heavy drinking, like excessive noise or vomit in the bathrooms, “they should demand that these issues be addressed,” he said.

Of course, he added, “parents should talk to their kids about drinking. Parents shouldn’t think that if it’s a beer and not a drug it’s of no consequence. Beer kills more people than drugs.”

Parents might also make it clear to students that they are expected to perform admirably outside the classroom as well as within it. Studies have shown that there is less drinking by students concerned about their grades, but also by those involved in volunteer work and other activities on and off campus.
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source: New York Times