REPORT FINDS ALCOHOL IS DRUG OF CHOICE AMONG COLLEGE ATHLETES

Although sports have been shown to help young people stay healthy and
out of trouble, substance abuse remains common among college
athletes. And new research suggests the most popular drug on college
campuses--alcohol--is even more frequently abused by athletes.

Two large studies, one by the National Collegiate Athletic
Association (NCAA), show that most college athletes drink, often to
excess, and many others down stimulants or smoke marijuana. Although
the NCAA study did not compare athletes' habits with those of
non-athletes, the second study did, and those researchers found
athletes drank more often, were more likely to binge, and reported
more ``alcohol-related harms'' such as injuries and police run-ins.

Toben F. Nelson and his colleague at Harvard School of Public Health
in Boston, Massachusetts, Henry Wechsler, looked at alcohol use among
nearly 13,000 college students nationwide, about 2,200 of whom were
athletes. The investigators found that both male and female athletes
were more likely than other students to binge drink, and they more
often said getting drunk was an ``important reason'' for drinking.

Athletes, Nelson told Reuters Health, are in social settings that
promote drinking more often than other students. The very fact that
they are part of a team provides them with an instant and large
circle of friends.

More troublesome, Nelson and Wechsler found that athletes drink more
despite the fact they are far more likely than non-athletes to have
anti-drinking education. Education, Nelson said, seems to lose out to
its ``competition''--such as media images that link sports and
alcohol.

According to Nelson, coaches, college administrators and athletic
departments need to be more alert to the problem of drinking among
athletes.

``A lot of people,'' Nelson said, ``still aren't willing to accept it.''

The NCAA study confirmed that drinking is standard behavior among
college athletes. In its periodic survey of athletes nationwide, the
association found that more than 80% of athletes drink. The survey
results, which were gathered in 1996, are published in the January
issue of the Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine.

While lead study author Dr. Gary A. Green told Reuters Health that he
believes athletes' behaviors largely mirror those of college students
in general, athletes do show a greater tendency to binge drink.

Green, an assistant professor at the University of California, Los
Angeles, said that alcohol is a ``big problem'' that no
``one-size-fits-all'' education effort will effectively fight. He
said the NCAA uses its survey information to develop anti-substance
abuse programs and shares its findings with colleges so they can
address the problems on their own campuses.

The survey also went beyond alcohol, finding that about 28% of
students used marijuana and a small percentage--3.5%--were using the
stimulant ephedrine to enhance their athletic performance. Found in
dietary supplements, ephedrine is touted as a weight-loss aid and
energy booster. It has also been linked to serious side effects such
as heart attack and stroke.

Moreover, Green noted, these responses were collected more than 4
years ago, and he suspects ephedrine use has gone up. After this
survey was taken, he said, the NCAA added ephedrine to its list of
banned substances.

But the NCAA's drug-testing policies may not be enough to cut
substance abuse among athletes. For example, Green's team found that
athletes at smaller, Division III schools had the highest rates of
abuse for several drugs. One reason, Green said, may be that Division
III schools have an official policy of not drug-testing athletes.
SOURCES: Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine 2001;11:51-56; Medicine
& Science in Sports & Exercise