Hoards of students walk down Euclid Ave. with red Solo cups on the weekend. This might give the idea that everyone at Syracuse University is getting drunk and hitting up parties constantly. However, the real facts may come as a surprise.

According to the American College Health Association’s fall 2008 National College Health Assessment, students on college campuses have a skewed portrait of substance use surrounding their campuses.

‘There are some circles of people that are heavier drug users,’ said Mary O’Connor, the nurse manager at Crouse Hospital. ‘They would think more students are drinking and using drugs because they are drinking and using drugs. On the contrary, in a group where it’s infrequent to drink and do drugs, they might think it’s minimally represented on a college campus.’

O’Connor said that at Crouse Hospital, treating students for binge drinking and or drug overdose is something usually done at least once a week. ‘It is more prevalent at the beginning of the year with freshmen, but there is an ongoing problem, more with drinking but sometimes there are multi-substance cases.’

I’ve always believed drinking plays a dominant role in many college campuses, and I think the presence of alcohol and drugs is not lost at SU. Even if none of your friends drink or do drugs, you are still going to see it going on throughout the campus. We have a ‘holiday’ in April when many students choose to drink all day.

This doesn’t necessarily mean there is a drinking or drug problem on campus, but the substances are present.

In the NCHA survey, 17.3 percent of students claimed to drink only one to two days in the 30 days prior to the survey and 23.1 percent of students claimed to not have any beer, wine or liquor. But again, the way students think about their peers drinking alcohol was different than the reality. A third, 31.4 percent, of students thought the ‘typical’ students at their school were drinking 10 to 19 days out of the last 30 days.

Those who study substance abuse at SU have found very similar statistics to that of the ACHA, said psychology professor Kate Carey.

Carey said the Center of Health and Behavior recently studied 1,500 SU students and found that 17 percent of male students and 22 percent of female students said they had not had an alcoholic drink during a typical week in the last month.

Half the girls sampled had less than seven drinks in a typical month, where as half of the males sampled had 14 drinks in a typical week that month.

‘I would expect that most SU students would estimate higher averages than those I just quoted,’ Carey said.

The statistics speak for themselves. Not everyone in college is drinking or using drugs. Just because you think everyone is doing it doesn’t necessarily mean they are, and in reality, they probably are not.

rltoback@syr.edu

Published on September 16, 2009 at 12:00 pm