STUDY FINDS CONTINUED COLLEGE BINGING

BOSTON -- More than half of college students who drank alcohol last year
set out to get drunk, according to a study by the Harvard School of Public
Health.

The survey of 14,521 students, published in this month's issue of the
Journal of American College Health, followed up on an analysis of 15,103
students in 1993. Both surveys queried students randomly at 130 colleges
across the country.

In 1993, about 39 percent of respondents who drank said they did so
intending to get drunk. That compares to 52 percent in 1997.

Nineteen percent of students surveyed said they hadn't touched a drink in a
year, up from 15.6 percent in the earlier study.

Henry Wechsler, who headed both studies, said it was difficult to gauge why
students were abstaining more. But he doubted access to booze was the issue.

More likely, Wechsler said, those students had listened to the warnings of
school administrators -- or were repelled by the drinking of their peers.

Wechsler's 1993 survey was seen as a wake-up call on many college campuses,
and administrators around the country have wrestled with ways to curb heavy
drinking and its sometimes deadly consequences.

In Washington yesterday, a group of academic and health organizations
released a set of recommendations for college officials, parents and
students to curb alcohol abuse. Colleges were urged to make strong
statements and policies against underage drinking, parents were urged to
talk to children about drinking, and students were urged to avoid the
social pressures to drink too much.

The group, the Inter-Association Task Force on Campus Alcohol Issues, also
released guidelines to limit how beer, wine and liquor companies promote
their wares on campus. The promotions, for example, should not include
drinking contests or unlimited sampling.

In both the 1993 and 1997 Harvard studies, fraternity and sorority members
were the biggest alcohol guzzlers on campus. Four out of five qualified as
"binge" drinkers, those men who drank at least five drinks in a row or
women who drank at least four.

"I think fraternities are so mired in alcohol, they're so into it that they
can't give it up," Wechsler said.

Overall, 42.7 percent of students surveyed were considered binge drinkers
in 1997, a slight decrease from the 44.1 percent in 1993. Wechsler said the
drop is attributed mostly to an increase in students who do not drink at all.

The 1997 survey was designed to measure how successful efforts to reduce
college drinking have been since 1993, and Wechsler said the results were
disappointing at best.

In both surveys, the majority of non-binge drinkers reported serious
disruptions related to their imbibing peers: sexual harassment, accidents
and injuries, loud outbursts in dorm rooms in the middle of the night and
vomit-covered bathrooms.

The study did not show which specific colleges had the most drinkers,
though schools in the Northeast and Midwest tended to produce more drinking.

Students at historically black and women's colleges, as well as commuter
schools without dorms, tended to drink less, researchers said.

High-profile deaths from alcohol -- like those at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology and Louisiana State last year -- do tend to sober
up their peers, but only until the next party, Wechsler said.

Some schools have responded by making it tougher to access alcohol,
increasing the penalties for drinking, establishing substance-free dorms
and promoting social alternatives, said Diane Barry, a spokeswoman for the
Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention in Newton.

Checked-by: Pat Dolan