Pubdate: Fri, 08 Sep 2000
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education, The (US)
Copyright: 2000 by The Chronicle of Higher Education
Contact:  http://chronicle.com/
Author: Scott Street

THE LATEST WAR ON 'BINGE DRINKING' IS AGAINST THE TERM ITSELF

A coalition of 21 higher-education associations is calling on college 
administrators, government officials, and researchers to stop using the 
term "binge drinking" in defining student alcohol use. The group's 
statement is the latest salvo in a simmering disagreement among 
policymakers over whether too-liberal definitions of problem drinking may 
actually promote alcohol consumption by causing students to think binge 
drinking is the norm.

In its statement this week, the Inter-Association Task Force on Alcohol and 
Other Substance Abuse Issues said that use of the phrase binge drinking 
should be reserved, as it historically has been, to refer to a "prolonged 
(usually two days or more) period of intoxication."

"Students themselves are getting tired of being portrayed negatively as a 
whole for the behavior of a few," said Drew Hunter, secretary of the panel 
and executive director of the BACCHUS and GAMMA Peer Education Network. 
"What we are asking for is to define the picture accurately."

Primarily responsible for the flawed definition of binge drinking, in the 
group's view, is the College Alcohol Study sponsored by Harvard 
University's School of Public Health. Its latest survey of student alcohol 
use, which was published in March, found that 44 percent of students binge, 
by its definition: five or more drinks in one sitting for a man, and four 
for a woman.

This morning, researchers at Harvard released a follow-up report showing 
that students believe that 35 percent of their peers binge drink, and that 
the students surveyed tend to define a binge as six drinks for a man and 
five for a woman. Those findings are in line with the researchers' earlier 
finding, the report's authors said.

But another national e-mail survey of students that was released this week 
takes issue with the Harvard findings. Sixty-five percent of respondents to 
the survey, which was sponsored by the Association of College Unions 
International, an association of student-activities officials, and 
conducted by the Washington polling company of Penn, Schoen, and Berland 
Associates, defined binge drinking as having eight or more drinks, and 
excessive drinking as having six or more.

When given the chance, many respondents specifically criticized Harvard's 
definition of binge drinking -- five for men and four for women -- as too 
low. "If that is binge drinking, then 95 percent of my campus binge drinks 
every week!" wrote a male junior at the University of California at Los 
Angeles.

Henry Wechsler, who directs the alcohol study at Harvard, took issue with 
the argument that by setting the bar low, its study may promote binge 
drinking by leading students to think it is the norm.

He noted that the proportion of students in who describe themselves as 
binge drinkers has remained steady throughout the 1990's, at about two in 
five, suggesting that definitions haven't had an effect on behavior.

But that's not to say drinking on college campuses isn't still a problem -- 
a much more significant problem than the debate over academic language.

"It's important that we work together to solve these problems," Mr. Hunter 
said. "There's no need for a feeling of competition or challenge."

Mr. Wechsler agreed. "If they can get rid of it," he said of problem 
drinking, "let them call it whatever they want."
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