PAC 102 Module 4 Substance Use on College Campuses Example

Two Overdoses on Maple Street: Heavy Drinking at Neighboring Colleges, Its Consequences and a Joint Response

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Psychology and Addiction Studies Program, Aspen University

PAC 102: Substance Abuse in Educational Settings

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Month Day, Year

Two Overdoses on Maple Street: Heavy Drinking at Neighboring Colleges, Its Consequences and a Joint Response

On a Saturday night in March, two nineteen-year-old students were taken from a house on Maple Street to the hospital with alcohol poisoning. One attended Lakeshore Community College; the other attended the state university across the road. Both survived. The house, rented by four university students, had hosted parties most weekends for two years. Maple Street sits between the two campuses, and its parties draw students from both. The community college has no residence halls and had assumed heavy drinking was mainly the university's problem. The incidents suggested otherwise. This paper analyzes heavy drinking among students at the two schools and proposes a joint response. The colleges, figures and incidents are invented; the research is real.

How Common Is Heavy Drinking?

Wechsler et al. (1994) conducted one of the first national surveys of college drinking, collecting responses from about seventeen thousand students at 140 colleges. They defined binge drinking as five or more drinks in a row for men and four or more for women at least once in the previous two weeks. Nearly half of students, 44%, reported binge drinking, and about one in five were frequent binge drinkers, doing so three or more times in two weeks. Frequent binge drinkers were far more likely than other students to have missed class, fallen behind in schoolwork, engaged in unplanned sex, gotten hurt, damaged property and driven after drinking. Students who did not binge drink also suffered: at schools with high binge drinking rates, they were more likely to report being insulted, having their studying or sleep interrupted, being pushed or assaulted or experiencing unwanted sexual advances.

Lakeshore Community College's own survey found 31% of students under twenty-one had binge drunk in the past two weeks, lower than Wechsler's national figure but high enough that, at a college of nine thousand, hundreds of students were drinking heavily on any given weekend.

How Serious Are the Consequences?

Hingson et al. (2009) estimated the magnitude of alcohol-related deaths and injuries among American college students aged eighteen to twenty-four. Using national data on deaths and injuries and on student drinking, they estimated that alcohol contributed to more than a thousand unintentional injury deaths among college students each year, including traffic deaths, and to hundreds of thousands of injuries. Millions of students reported driving under the influence of alcohol in the past year. The estimates had risen over the period studied, reflecting both growing enrollment and persistent heavy drinking.

For Lakeshore, the overdoses were not the only risk. Students at a commuter college often drive home from parties, and the college's survey found that 9% of students who drank reported driving after drinking in the past month.

Why Students Drink: The Role of Peers

Borsari and Carey (2001) reviewed research on how peers influence college drinking. They identified three main routes. Direct influences include offers of drinks and pressure to drink, such as drinking games. Modeling occurs when students match the drinking of those around them. Perceived norms, students' beliefs about how much and how often other students drink, are among the strongest predictors of drinking, and students consistently overestimate how much their peers drink. Students who believe heavy drinking is normal drink more to fit in. The review also noted that settings such as fraternities and parties amplify these influences.

Maple Street concentrates all three. Parties provide offers and drinking games, students model one another and the parties' reputation feeds the belief that everyone drinks heavily. The community college survey showed that students estimated 70% of their peers binge drank, more than twice the actual figure.

Consequences on Maple Street

Why the Community College Assumed It Was Safe

The college's assumption that heavy drinking belonged to the university reflects a common view of commuter campuses: without residence halls or fraternities, they seem insulated from party culture. The data show otherwise. Many of the college's younger students live with roommates near the university, attend the same parties and share the same misperceived norms. They also face a risk that residential students face less: most drive. A commuter campus that waits for problems to appear on its own grounds will miss where its students actually drink. Recognizing that the college's students are part of a shared social world with the university is the first step toward a response that matches where the risk lies.

A Joint Response

Because students move between the two campuses, the colleges should respond together. Four steps follow from the analysis. First, a shared norms campaign using each school's survey data to show students that most of their peers do not binge drink, addressing the overestimation Borsari and Carey identified. Second, a medical amnesty policy at both schools, so that students who call for help for a friend in danger, as someone did on Maple Street, do not face discipline for their own drinking; such policies address a common reason students hesitate to call. Third, an agreement with Maple Street landlords and the city on party registration and enforcement of underage service laws, addressing the environment rather than only individuals. Fourth, easy access to brief, confidential screening and intervention at both colleges, which Module 5 will plan.

Conclusion

Heavy drinking at Lakeshore Community College is not only the neighboring university's problem; it is shared, concentrated in an off-campus setting both schools' students attend. Wechsler and colleagues show how common binge drinking is and how it harms other students, Hingson, Zha and Weitzman show the seriousness of its consequences and Borsari and Carey explain how peers and misperceived norms drive it. A joint response that corrects norms, protects students who call for help, addresses the party environment and offers early intervention fits what the research suggests.

References

Borsari, B., & Carey, K. B. (2001). Peer influences on college drinking: A review of the research. Journal of Substance Abuse, 13(4), 391-424. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0899-3289(01)00098-0

Hingson, R. W., Zha, W., & Weitzman, E. R. (2009). Magnitude of and trends in alcohol-related mortality and morbidity among U.S. college students ages 18-24, 1998-2005. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, Supplement 16, 12-20. https://doi.org/10.15288/jsads.2009.s16.12

Wechsler, H., Davenport, A., Dowdall, G., Moeykens, B., & Castillo, S. (1994). Health and behavioral consequences of binge drinking in college: A national survey of students at 140 campuses. JAMA, 272(21), 1672-1677. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.1994.03520210056032