Binge Drinking the National Institute

Binge Drinking The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism defines binge drinking as a pattern of drinking alcohol that brings blood alcohol concentration to 0.08 or above. This translates into five-plus drinks in two hours for men and four-plus drinks for women; a drink is defined as a half ounce of alcohol. Many may believe that the problem of binge drinking is limited to a few problem students. However, according to research from the Harvard School of Public Health, binge drinking occurs among two out of every five U.S.

college students; half of them did so multiple times. The researchers, caution, "While the heaviest drinkers are at greatest risk for harm, they are relatively few and generate proportionately small amounts of all drinking-harms. The risk of harms is not zero among lower level drinkers in college. Because they are numerous, they account for the majority of harms." Unfortunately, not only is the problem not confined to a small group, the harm is significant.

The Task Force on College Drinking released a study in April 2002 that revealed 1,400 college students die and 500,000 are injured every year in alcohol-related accidents. "More college students die from alcohol each year than U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq in a year-and-a-half. Statistically speaking, alcohol abuse is a more deadly enemy than terrorism." While the merits of this comparison are debatable, is does drive home the point that students are needlessly dying because they do not fully understand the dangers of drinking. Bibliography Dormish, Marty.

"Bing Drinking is Detrimental to College Students." Round Up News 30 Sept. 2004. Available: http://www.roundupnews.com/media/paper474/news/2004/09/30/Opinion/Binge.Drinking.Is.Detrimental.To.College.Students-737622.shtml (Accessed 8 May 2005). Weitzman, E.R., and Nelson, T.F., "College Student Binge Drinking and.