A UNM office released a survey last week that contradicts common perceptions regarding substance abuse among college students.
The Campus Office of Substance Abuse Prevention released, “College Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drug Use in New Mexico,” a study that for the first time surveyed students at five four-year institutions and two two-year institutions in New Mexico.
The survey examined college substance abuse habits, including use of marijuana and drunk driving. Also, much emphasis was placed on the consequences of binge drinking, such as the correlation between dropping out and binge drinking.
Jill Anne Yeagley, program manager of UNM’s Campus Office of Substance Abuse Prevention, said college students do not abuse substances as excessively as is widely believed.
“People think that college students are drinking and using drugs a lot more than they actually are,” she said. “If you go to a party, you don’t notice the person who is not drinking alcohol. It doesn’t really click like ‘oh geez, that person is really drinking moderately.’ However, you notice Joe over there who is getting really sloppy drunk. Those kinds of things really feed into the perception that you go to a party and everybody is drinking a lot. Some students will see the statistics and it will be an eye opener.”
The survey found that 41 percent of New Mexico college students binge drink “frequently,” defined as consuming two or more drinks more than once in a two-week period.
Yeagley said she was pleased to see that the report reflected UNM’s efforts to reduce drunk driving. “We have been working more intensely than some of the other schools about using a designated driver, that there are a lot of checkpoints going on and don’t even chance it kind of information,” she said. “We found that UNM had a higher percentage of students that indicated that they did that than the other schools and we had the highest percentage of students who said their friends would disapprove of them driving after drinking.”
Even though the report did not distinguish between schools, COSAP had access to institution-specific information, Yeagley said.
Despite some positive statistics — especially relating to drunk driving — there were some troubling trends shown in the report, said John Steiner, project director behind the report.
“We had a 41 percent binge drinking rate,” he said. “It’s a little higher than we’d like to see it. Binge drinking is the cut off between social, moderate drinking and the drinking that brings about and starts to create problems.”
The report will hopefully aid students, Steiner said, by helping them make informed decisions.
“Here at COSAP, we don’t try to tell students what to do with their personal lives,” he said. “But we do try to make information available so students can make intelligent decisions and allow them to understand the aid and ideas and other ways for them to either explore their drinking or reduce that risk.”
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The strong negative correlation between grade-point average and average drinks per week should influence students to drink less, Yeagley said.
“In general, the students that are drinking the most heavily are the students with the worst GPAs,” she said. “That is just some of the information about looking at alcohol-related consequences that would be useful for students to look at and be aware of. It could perhaps enlighten and encourage some people to change behavior a little bit.”
The similarity between NMSU and UNM was unexpected, Steiner said.
“Everybody calls New Mexico State ‘the party school,’” he said. “It’s a little surprising to find out there is not much difference in binge drinking and drinks per week between UNM and NMSU.”
Student William Johnson said he is curious to see if the study’s findings mirror his own experiences.
“I would look just to find out what the numbers were, just to know the statistics,” he said. “Initially, I’m inclined to think it is a high percentage but it may be lower, maybe not as many people drink as I would assume.”
The goals of the report — to both gather and distribute information to students and public officials — were accomplished, Steiner said.
“What we are seeing gave us reasons to work harder in some areas and gave us reasons to think that our students are pretty smart,” he said. “They are making some pretty darn smart decisions about their habits around drugs and alcohol in a large majority of the cases.”
The New Mexico institutions who participated in the survey were two-year institutions including the Southwest Indian Polytechnic Institute and San Juan College and four-year institutions including, UNM, NMSU, Eastern New Mexico University and Western New Mexico University.
New Mexico college students:
DRUNK DRIVING
65% never drove under influence of alcohol in past 12 months
84% said their friends would disapprove or disapprove strongly if they drove drunk
BINGE DRINKING/ACADEMIC CONSEQUENCES
30% of college drop-outs blame alcohol abuse for their academic failure
41% of students admit to binge drinking in the last two weeks
59% of frequent binge drinkers reported missing class due to drinking
22% of moderate drinkers missed class because of alcohol consumption
33% of frequent binge drinkers have been injured as a result of alcohol
11 drinks per week — “D” and “F” students
3 drinks per week — “A” students
