Recent reports indicate that binge drinking is up on college campuses across the United States. According to the U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism , as reported in the July issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs:
- Drinking-related deaths among students aged 18 to 24 years have increased steadily from 1,440 a year in 1998 to 1,825 in 2005.
- The proportion of students who said they’d binged on alcohol in the past month going up from 42 to 45 percent.
- The proportion of students who admitted to driving under the influence of alcohol rose from about 26 to 29 percent.
- There are probably 700,000 students who are assaulted each year by a drinking college student and 100,000 sexual assaults that are linked to college drinking.
Thankfully, Minnesota hasn’t seen the increased number of deaths as a result that it did in past years. The study didn’t address individual states, so this issue will have to be watched by all colleges.
