ALCOHOL AND DRUGS STILL A PROBLEM FOR STUDENTS DESPITE STATISTICS

Although the use of hard drugs was found to be more rare; alcohol and
marijuana are popular student activities

Every year, 1,400 college students die in alcohol-related incidents, and
despite figures from Virginia Tech's College Alcohol Abuse Prevention Center
suggesting the vast majority of students do not drink heavily, Tech isn't
immune to this deadly trend.

In September, Thomas Hauser, a junior general engineering major, passed away
from suspected alcohol poisoning. Earlier this year, underage quarterback
Marcus Vick along with Mike Imoh and Brendan Hill, made headlines when they
served teenage girls alcohol. Later, Vick was also charged with possession
of marijuana. But they're hardly the first Tech students to be found with
pot or alcohol.

A junior marketing major who asked to not be named said that while she did
not usually use illegal drugs, she knew at least 10 hook-ups to get pot,
cocaine and MDMA, known to most students as "ecstasy." That's not
surprising, considering that according to the National Institute on Drug
Abuse's website, www.nida.nih.gov, over half of all adults ages 18 to 25
used marijuana in 2001-2002. Another 15 percent have used cocaine or crack
at least once.

But at Tech, the main illegal drug is marijuana. Chris Benton, senior
accounting major, said while he had two friends who smoked pot and could get
some from them if he wanted, he didn't know anyone who did coke, crack or
"ecstasy."

"I don't think my friends associate themselves with people who do the harder
stuff," he said.

The anonymous marketing major said she had tried ecstasy twice and would not
do it again because of the paranoia she experienced and the potential for
brain damage. "I don't think people realize how dangerous it is," she said.

Jessica Folmar, a sophomore university studies major, knows about 20 people
who smoke pot, but like Benton's friends, don't do anything else. "I don't
think I know anyone who deals," she said. "But lots of them would let me
smoke up with them."

Alcohol use is even more prevalent at Tech. A survey done by Schiffert
Health Center in February 2002 revealed about 80 percent of undergraduate
students drink at least occasionally. Steven Clarke, director of the College
Alcohol Abuse Prevention Center, said the survey was e-mailed randomly to
2,000 undergraduates and 1,024 responded.

Clarke also said the survey's data reflected national trends for students at
schools similar to Tech.

The survey also revealed about 20 percent of undergraduate students are
experiencing repeated problems with alcohol that could impact their personal
and academic lives.

"We see about 500 to 700 students per year who have misused alcohol in the
community," Clarke said.

But Clarke said only a few students meet the characteristics of alcoholism,
which are blackouts, DUI charges, guilt about alcohol use and unsuccessful
attempts to cut back. Regardless, many undergraduates drink enough to impact
their class attendance.

The undergraduate marketing major said she had missed class once due to
heavy drinking the night before. "My hangover was so miserable that I cut
back on drinking after that," she said.

Nassiba Adjerid, a biology master's student who teaches a weekly
microbiology lab, said her students, who are mostly sophomores and juniors,
don't usually miss her class because of drinking. "My labs are later in the
day, so most of them make it by then," she said. "But I hear them talk about
how they skipped their eight o'clock morning classes."

Adjerid said she also often hears the students in her Wednesday lab talking
about their party plans for the upcoming weekend and the students in her
Monday lab talking about the past weekend. "It's usually how they had so
much fun at the football game, how they were completely wasted at the
football game, tailgating, any frats that threw parties over the weekend,"
Adjerid said.

Adjerid's students are also teaching her a few things. "Some of them even
know how to brew the beer," she said. "They were teaching me, because we had
a lab about it. They knew more than I did about how to calculate percent
alcohol, how to do all these things I didn't even know about."