CASA Report Finds Half of College Students Binge Drink, Abuse Prescription and Illegal Drugs

Forty-nine percent (3.8 million) of full time college students binge drink and/or abuse prescription and illegal drugs, according to Wasting the Best and the Brightest: Substance Abuse at America´s Colleges and Universities,, a new report by The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.

The study also finds that 1.8 million full-time college students (22.9 percent) meet the medical criteria for substance abuse and dependence, two and one half times the 8.5 percent of the general population who meet these same criteria.

The comprehensive 231-page report, the result of more than four years of research, surveys, interviews and focus groups is the most extensive examination ever undertaken of the substance abuse situation on the nation’s college campuses.

“It’s time to get the ‘high’ out of higher education,” said Joseph A. Califano, Jr., CASA’s chairman and president and former U.S. Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. “Under any circumstances acceptance by administrators, trustees, professors and parents of this college culture of alcohol and other drug abuse is inexcusable. In this world of fierce global competition, we are losing thousands of our nation’s best and brightest to alcohol and drugs, and in the process robbing them and our nation of their promising futures.”

The report finds that from 1993 to 2005 there has been no real decline in the proportion of students who drink (70 to 68 percent) and binge drink (40 to 40 percent). However, the intensity of excessive drinking and rates of drug abuse have jumped sharply:
 

• Between 1993 and 2001 the proportion of students who binge drink frequently [ii] is up 16 percent; who drink on 10 or more occasions in a month, up 25 percent; who get drunk at least three times a month, up 26 percent; and who drink to get drunk, up 21 percent.
• Between 1993 and 2005 the proportion of students abusing prescription drugs increased:
  • 343 percent for opioids like Percocet, Vicodin and OxyContin;
  • 93 percent for abuse of stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall;
  • 450 percent for tranquilizers like Xanax and Valium;
  • 225 percent for sedatives like Nembutal and Seconal.
• Between 1993 and 2005, the proportion of students who:
  • Use marijuana daily more than doubled to 310,000.
  • Use cocaine, heroin, and other illegal drugs (except marijuana), is up 52 percent to 636,000.

When asked about the role coalitions could play in translating this research in the community, CASA Director Joe Califano suggested, “Many leaders within coalitions are college and university alumni. They need to find out what’s happening at their own alma mater, and share their concerns with their alumni organizations.” Nearly 38 percent of college administrators say the major barrier to more effective prevention is the public perception that substance abuse by college students is a normal rite of passage. “College presidents are reluctant to take on issues they feel they cannot change and this growing public health crisis reflects today’s society where students are socialized to consider substance abuse a harmless rite of passage and to medicate every ill,” said Reverend Edward A. Malloy, CSC, Chair, The CASA Commission on Substance Abuse at Colleges and Universities II and President Emeritus, University of Notre Dame.

Upon reviewing the report, CADCA Chairman and CEO, General Arthur T. Dean noted, “For anti-drug coalitions, particularly those in college towns, addressing this particular population should be part of their overall community strategy. What happens in the dorm rooms, on the campus lawn, and within the fraternal systems has an impact on the entire community. A permissive attitude that substance abuse is ‘part of the college experience’ by students, faculty, parents and school administrators is not only dangerous to the college students; it also sends a damaging message to the kids living in that community.” To learn more about the new CASA report, visit: www.casacolumbia.org.