This is an exciting time for young people who are about to start their first year of college. The thought of it is intoxicating. Living away from home, no longer under the watchful eye of Mom or Dad, newly minted college students have their first taste of freedom, of living with thousands of their peers, enjoying the campus social life. No matter how serious they are about their studies, the temptation to party is nearly impossible to resist.
No matter how vigilant parents are during the high school years, all that can be quickly undone when they leave their child at the college campus gates. Colleges and universities appear powerless to stop alcohol abuse among the student population and resist communicating with parents on the issue.
Due to privacy laws and the fact that college students are over 18, colleges often do not notify parents if a student’s life is endangered by alcohol abuse. With the recent surge in alcohol poisoning deaths among college-age students, it is a problem that needs addressing now.
According to an Associated Press analysis, federal records show that 157 college-age people 18 to 23 drank themselves to death from 1999 through 2005, the most recent year for which figures are available. The number of deaths per year from alcohol poisoning rose from 18 in 1999 to 35 in 2005. Over this seven-year time period, 83 of the victims were under the drinking age of 21.
One analysis of hundreds of news articles about alcohol poisoning deaths found that victims had an average blood alcohol level of 0.40 percent, or five times the legal limit for driving. The goal of a lot of young people, said one student life director, is just to get smashed.
Although schools and communities have responded to the binge-drinking problem in various ways, including passing laws to discourage over-imbibing, they are fighting a long, uphill battle. The enemy takes many forms and can strike preemptively, when parents least expect it.
Recently, Connecticut’s Attorney General Richard Blumenthal expressed outrage after a video game called “Beer Pong,” designed for Nintendo Co.’s popular Wii game system to replicate a popular college drinking game, was recommended by the Entertainment Software Rating Board as suitable for children as young as 13. Blumenthal wants the rating board to change its methods so games involving alcohol aren’t recommended to minors.
The yet-to-be-released game has changed its name to “Pong Toss” and the game maker, JV Games Inc., is eliminating all references to alcohol.
Indoctrinating people as young as junior high-age to drinking games is a recipe for disaster. The number of deaths from college drinking games can only go up.
Imagine what it is like for a parent to find out after the fact that their child is hospitalized or worse because their friends have put them to bed thinking that they will just “sleep it off” when they were dying. That is what happened in nearly every case of reported alcohol poisoning.
Parents who have been through a “scare” probably will not talk about it directly. They may think that it somehow reflects on them as parents when a child has a close call at college. But it happens more than people think.
If you are about to take your new freshman to college, of course you should do so with the all of the positive thoughts that come with launching your child into adulthood. But remember to ask the college student life personnel what their policy is on notifying parents in the case of a medical emergency.
Don’t wait to hear it second or third hand through the child’s friends, or worse, from the authorities.
Norwood resident Candace Leary’s Midpoints column appears Mondays in the Transcript.
