Laws Affect Binge Drinking

Binge drinking among college students is significantly higher in states that have relaxed alcohol policies and high rates of adult binge drinking, according to a recent study conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study (CAS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The study refutes the commonly held belief that college binge drinking practices are affected only by campus culture, said Henry Wechsler, the director of the CAS and the principal investigator of this study.

“A college doesn’t exist in a vacuum,” he said, “but is affected by the levels of drinking and laws about drinking around it.”

The study’s results suggest that a college’s location does play a significant role in its level of binge drinking.

The CAS defines binge drinking as “a risky pattern of alcohol use” in which men consume five or more drinks in a row and women consume four or more.

The data shows that 36 percent of college students binge drink in states with low levels of adult binge drinking, compared to 53 percent in states with high levels.

Additionally, 33 percent of college students binge drink in states that have strict alcohol laws, while 48 percent binge drink in states where these laws are not well established.

In assessing the severity of alcohol policy restrictions, the study looked at seven laws that states could impose—including keg registration requirements, restrictions on open alcohol containers in public, and a legal .08 blood alcohol concentration limit.

The study surveyed college students from a wide range of colleges across the nation that varied in academic competition, student body size, and in-state location.

Due to confidentiality agreements, researchers would not disclose the names of the specific colleges studied.

States in the Northeast and the Midwest had the highest levels of both student and adult binge drinking.

The study’s conclusion suggests “state-level alcohol control policies may help reduce binge drinking among college students and in the general population.”

This study—published in this month’s issue of the American Journal of Public Health—is the most recent of several studies released by the CAS.

“Our overall study is bringing attention to this particular issue of alcohol being the third leading cause of death and disability in the US,” said Toben F. Nelson, who did the analysis in the study and was its lead author.

Other CAS studies, which have focused on the particulars of each college, found that there is a wide variation between colleges in their levels of binge drinking, said Nelson.

Wechsler said binge drinking can’t be generalized to the affiliation of a school, whether it is private or public, or its level of academic competition.

Nelson said the CAS also found that binge drinking is due in large part to how much a “college facilitates this behavior,” mentioning the high number of alcohol-related illnesses among students following this fall’s Harvard-Yale game.

According to Nelson, future CAS studies will look at how the transition from high school to college affects individual students’ drinking behavior.