A new study by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism found the number of college students binge drinking rose from 42 percent to 45 percent between 1998 and 2005. The statistic should come as no shock to anyone who's been down to Route 1 in the past decade. But answers to the questions of why more students are binge drinking - and what that means - remain elusive.
When asked why college students drink, just about everyone talks about the "drinking culture." It's what you'll hear from academics, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, students and even the federal government. "Students derive their expectations of alcohol from their environment and from each other, as they face the insecurity of establishing themselves in a new social milieu," proclaims the government-sponsored "College Drinking - Changing the Culture" website.
On its own, the "culture" argument seems like little more than circular logic: Students drink because they're expected to, and they're expected to because other students are drinking. Everyone's doing it because everyone's doing it! The argument has an element of truth: It's obvious you're more likely to try drinking if you arrive on campus and everyone's passing the beers around, and before long you'll be passing the beers around to the next generation. It's just that seeing the cycle doesn't get you very far.
It's also important to recognize that a three percent increase in seven years isn't a radical transformation. In fact, it seems that in the United States, alcohol consumption has remained at similar levels over time: The World Health Organization reports that in 1960, 7.8 liters per capita were consumed by people over the age of 15. That number peaked in 1981/1982 at 10.5 liters/capita (probably attributable to the music, hair, and leather pants), and settled back to 8.6 liters/capita in 2007.
If you want to see a radical transformation, check out the WHO's numbers on the percent of the population over 15 who smoke daily. In 1965, 42.4 percent of the population smoked daily; the number peaked in 1966 when 42.6 percent smoked. That number dropped 3.5 percent the following year, beginning a precipitous decline. By 2007, that number had dropped dramatically to just 15.4 percent of the population. As of last year, the U.S. Census Bureau reported there were about 240 million residents over the age of 15. This means if smoking rates had stayed the same from 1965, some 65.5 million more Americans would be smoking on a daily basis.
There's a strong argument that the decline in smoking was caused by a national health awareness campaign, which began right before the percentage of people smoking began to drop off. In 1957, the Surgeon General adopted the official position that smoking caused lung cancer. In 1964, the Surgeon General released a report entitled "Smoking and Health" saying smokers were between ten and twenty more times likely to develop lung cancer. The report made front-page news across the country and marked a significant moment in the beginning of tobacco regulation and anti-tobacco advertisement. Only two weeks ago, the anti-smoking initiative took another huge leap forward, with the signing of a federal bill giving the FDA extremely wide powers to regulate tobacco.
So it seems people were smoking because they were unaware of the health risks. Educate them, and they call up 1-800-QUIT-NOW. But at least on college campuses, the same doesn't seem true of binge drinking. From their first day on campus, students are bombarded with information about the health risks of drinking, yet the liquor flies faster than ever. Why is there a difference?
Maybe people were surprised by the health risks of tobacco, whereas most have known all along about what alcohol can do. Maybe tobacco serves a less important social function than drinking together does. There might be hundreds of other compelling reasons you could come up with to explain the differences between tobacco and alcohol consumption. And there are an infinite number of things with which to compare binge drinking: Why do students take six shots instead of smoking marijuana, for example?
Ultimately, however, the most fundamental question is why do students drink, and why do they binge drink? Everyone in the discussion needs to recognize that "a drinking culture" is an unsatisfactory answer.
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