ALCOHOL

ALCOHOL

The active principle of intoxicating drinks, produced
by the fermentation of sugars.
A Congressman was once asked by a constituent
to explain his attitude toward
whiskey. “If you mean the demon drink that
poisons the mind, pollutes the body, desecrates
family life, and inflames sinners, then
I’m against it,” the Congressman said. “But if
you mean the elixir of Christmas cheer, the
shield against winter chill, the taxable potion
that puts needed funds into public coffers to
comfort little crippled children, then I’m for
it. This is my position, and I will not compromise.”
The LEGAL HISTORY of alcohol in the United
States closely parallels the economic and social
trends that shaped the country. The libertarian
philosophy that ignited the WHISKEY REBELLION
was born in the American Revolution. Shifting
concerns about morality and family harmony
that were characteristic of the Industrial Revolution
inspired the TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT and
brought about PROHIBITION, which began with
the passage of the EIGHTEENTH AMENDMENT to
the Constitution in 1919 and ended with its
repeal in 1933. The return of legalized drinking
in the United States led to renewed discussion of
the many health and safety issues associated
with alcohol consumption. Over the years, the
states have addressed these issues through a variety
of laws, such as those dealing with a minimum
age for the purchase or consumption of
alcohol, the labeling of alcoholic beverages, and
drunk driving. Private litigants have expanded
protections against harm from alcohol through
TORT actions, and various groups, both national
and local, continue to lobby for increased legislation
and higher penalties for alcohol-related
acts that lead to injury.

Historical Background of Alcohol in the United States
Drink is in itself a good creature of God,
and to be received with thankfulness,
but the abuse of drink is from Satan,
the wine is from God, but the Drunkard is from
the Devil.
(Increase Mather, Puritan clergyman, Wo to
Drunkards [1673])

Alcoholic beverages have been consumed in the United States since the days of Plymouth Rock. In fact, beer and wine were staples on the ships carrying settlers to the New World. In colonial times, water and milk were scarce and susceptible to contamination or spoilage, and tea and coffee were expensive. The Pilgrims turned to such alternatives as cider and beer, and, less frequently, whiskey, rum, and gin. In 1790, per capita consumption of pure alcohol,
or absolute alcohol, was just under six gallons a year. (Pure alcohol constitutes only a small percentage of an alcoholic drink. For example, if a beverage contains 10 percent alcohol by volume,
one would have to drink ten gallons of it to consume
one gallon of pure alcohol.)
Although the majority of the colonists drank
alcohol regularly, strong community social strictures
curbed any tendency toward immoderation.
Drunken behavior was dealt with by
emphasizing the need to restore community
harmony and stability, rather than by imposing
punishment.
Alcohol consumption continued without
much controversy until after the Revolutionary
War when whiskey and other distilled spirits
became valuable commercial commodities.
When Congress imposed an excise tax on the
farmers who produced liquor in the 1790s, they
resisted paying the tax. Their resistance became
known as the Whiskey Rebellion, a protest
movement of farmers who felt the tax placed an
undue burden on their commercial activities.
Before the nineteenth century, farming was
the predominant occupation, and, although it
involved grueling work, it did not demand precision
or speed. The Industrial Revolution
brought millions of workers into factories where
efficiency, dexterity, and rigid scheduling were
necessary.With these economic changes came a
shift in societal attitudes toward alcohol. Gone was the time when people considered the midday
liquor break a benign diversion.
The Temperance Movement
‘Mid pleasures and palaces, though we may
roam,
Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.
But there is the father lies drunk on the floor,
The table is empty, the wolf ’s at the door,
And mother sobs loud in her broken-back’d
chair,
Her garments in tatters, her soul in despair.
(Nobil Adkisson, Ruined by Drink [c. 1860])

As the United States entered the Industrial
Age, attitudes about alcohol consumption
gradually changed. A moralistic and punitive
view of alcohol replaced the laissez-faire attitudes
of earlier times. What had been the
“good creature of God” in the eighteenth century
became the “demon rum” of the nineteenth.
The U.S. temperance movement emerged
around 1826 with the formation of the American
Society for the Promotion of Temperance,
later called the American Temperance Society. In the 1840s, the society began crusading for complete
abstinence from alcohol. Dissemination of
the temperance message caused a fall in per
capita consumption of pure alcohol from a high
of over seven gallons a year in 1830 to just over
three in 1840, the largest ten-year drop in U.S.
history. By the outbreak of the Civil War, 13
states, beginning with Maine in 1851, had
adopted some form of prohibition as law.
Other temperance organizations became
prominent during the middle to late 1800s. In
1874, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was founded. The only temperance
organization still in operation, the WCTU has
worked continuously since its inception to educate
the public and to influence policies that discourage
the use of alcohol and other drugs. In
1990, the group was nominated for a Nobel
Peace Prize.
In 1869, the anti-alcohol movement created
its own political party—the National Prohibition
party—devoted to a single goal: to inspire
legislation prohibiting the manufacture, transportation,
and sale of alcoholic beverages. The
party made modest showings in state elections
through the 1860s and 1870s, and reached its
peak of popular support in 1892 when John Bidwell
won almost 265,000 votes in his bid for the
presidency. The Prohibition party’s main effect
was its influence on public policy. It succeeded
in placing Prohibition planks into many state
party platforms and was a potent impetus
behind passage of the Eighteenth Amendment.
One of the most powerful forces in the Prohibition
movement was the Anti-Saloon League,
a nonpartisan group founded in 1893 by representatives
of temperance societies and evangelical
Protestant churches. The Anti-Saloon
League, unlike the PROHIBITION PARTY, worked
within established political parties to support
candidates who were sympathetic to the league’s
goals. By 1916, the league, with the help of the
Prohibition party and the WCTU, had sent
enough sympathetic candidates to Congress to
ensure action on a Prohibition amendment to
the Constitution.
Prohibition
Prohibition is an awful flop.
We like it.
It can’t stop what it’s meant to stop.
We like it.
It’s left a trail of graft and slime
It don’t prohibit worth a dime
It’s filled our land with vice and crime,
Nevertheless, we’re for it.
(Franklin P. Adams, quoted in Era of Excess)
In December 1917, the temperance movement
achieved its goal when Congress approved
the Eighteenth Amendment, which prohibited
the manufacture, sale, transportation, importation,
or exportation of intoxicating liquors from
or to the United States or its territories. The
amendment was sent to the states, and, by January
1919, it was ratified. In January 1920, the
United States officially became dry.
The demand for liquor did not end with
Prohibition, however. Those willing to violate
the law saw an opportunity to fill that demand
and become wealthy in the process. Illegal stills
produced the alcohol needed to make “bathtub
gin.” Rum and other spirits from abroad were
commonly smuggled into the country from the
east and northwest coasts, and illegal drinking
establishments, known as speakeasies or blind
pigs, proliferated. The illicit production and distribution
of alcohol, called bootlegging,
spawned a multibillion-dollar underworld business
run by a syndicate of criminals.
Perhaps the most famous of the bootleggers
was AL CAPONE, who ran liquor, prostitution,
and RACKETEERING operations in Chicago—
one of the wettest of the wet towns.At the height
of his power in the mid-1920s, Capone made
hundreds of millions of dollars a year. He
employed nearly a thousand people and enjoyed
the cooperation of numerous police officers and
other corrupt public officials who were willing
to turn a blind eye in return for a share of his
profits. For years, Capone and others like him
evaded attempts to shut down their operations.
Capone’s reign finally ended in 1931 when he
was convicted of income TAX EVASION.
Historians differ about the success of Prohibition.
Some feel that the effort was a ludicrous
failure that resulted in more severe social problems than had ever been associated with alcohol
consumption. Others point to ample evidence
that Prohibition, although never succeeding in
making the country completely dry, dramatically
changed U.S. drinking habits. Per capita
consumption at the end of Prohibition had
fallen to just under a gallon of pure alcohol a
year, and accidents and deaths attributable to
alcohol had declined steeply.
Although Prohibition enjoyed widespread
popular support, a substantial minority of U.S.
citizens simply ignored the law. Also, although
Prohibition unquestionably fostered unprecedented
criminal activity, many people were concerned
that the government’s enforcement
efforts unduly intruded into personal privacy. In
cases such as Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S.
132, 45 S. Ct. 280, 69 L. Ed. 543 (1925), the
Supreme Court indicated its willingness to
stretch the limits of POLICE POWER in order to
enforce Prohibition. In Carroll, the Court held
that federal agents were justified in conducting a
warrantless search of an automobile, because
they had PROBABLE CAUSE to believe it contained
illegal liquor.
Concerns over diminished liberties led to
feelings that Prohibition was too oppressive a
measure to impose upon an entire nation. This
sentiment was bolstered by arguments that the
production and sale of alcohol were profitable
enterprises that could help boost the nation’s
depressed economy. By the beginning of the
1930s, after little more than a decade as law, Prohibition
lost its hold on the U.S. conscience. The
promise of jobs and increased tax revenues
helped the anti-Prohibition message recapture
political favor. The TWENTY-FIRST AMENDMENT,
repealing Prohibition, swept through the necessary
36-state ratification process, and the “noble
experiment” ended on December 5, 1933.
Post-Prohibition Regulation
and Control
The repeal of Prohibition forced states to
address once more the dangers posed by excessive
alcohol consumption. The risks are well
documented. The National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimated that,
in 2001, alcohol was involved in 41 percent of all
fatal crashes (over 17,000 fatalities). NHTSA
also estimates that three out of ten Americans
will be involved in an alcohol-related crash
sometime during their lives. Alcohol is the most
widely used drug among teenagers and is linked
to juvenile crime, health problems, suicide, date
rape, and unwanted pregnancy. Alcohol-related
traffic accidents are the leading cause of death
among 15- to 24-year-olds.
In the face of rising concerns about liquor
consumption and personal injury, many states
chose to regulate alcohol through DRAMSHOP
LAWS. A dramshop is any type of drinking
establishment where liquor is sold for consumption
on the premises. Dramshop statutes
impose liability on sellers of alcoholic beverages
for injuries caused by an intoxicated patron.
Under such statutes, a person injured by a
drunk patron sues the establishment where the
patron was served. The purpose of dramshop
laws is to hold responsible those who enjoy economic
benefit from the sale of liquor, thereby
ensuring that a loss is not borne solely by an
innocent victim (as when the intoxicated person
who caused the injuries has no assets and
no insurance).
The first dramshop law, enacted in Wisconsin
in 1849, required saloons or taverns to post a
bond for expenses that might result from civil
lawsuits against their patrons. Many states followed
Wisconsin’s lead, and dramshop laws were
prominent until the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s,
when most were repealed. However, the 1980s
brought renewed concern over the consequences
of overindulgence in alcohol, and public pressure
led to the passage of new dramshop
statutes. By 1993, 36 states had imposed some
form of liability on purveyors of alcoholic beverages
for injuries caused by their customers.
All states and the District of Columbia also
regulate the sale of liquor to minors or to individuals who are intoxicated. Challenges to the
age restriction on EQUAL PROTECTION grounds
have been unsuccessful.
Along with statutory measures, most courts
have also recognized a common-law CAUSE OF
ACTION against alcohol vendors for the negligent
sale of alcohol. In Rappaport v. Nichols, 31
N.J. 188, 156 A.2d 1 (1959), the court held that a
tavern could be held liable for the plaintiff ’s husband’s
death after the tavern served an intoxicated
minor who caused the accident that killed
the man. The court relied on the public policy
concerns underlying liquor control laws. Such
laws are intended to protect the general public as
well as minors or intoxicated persons, the court
reasoned, and therefore the tavern should be
held liable if its NEGLIGENCE was a substantial
factor in creating the circumstances that led to
the husband’s death. Under Rappaport, serving
as well as consuming alcohol can be construed
to be the proximate cause of an injury. A majority
of jurisdictions now follow the Rappaport
court’s reasoning.
In determining the extent of an alcohol vendor’s
liability, a growing number of courts apply
comparative negligence principles. Comparative
negligence assesses partial liability to a plaintiff
whose failure to exercise reasonable care contributes
to his or her own injury. In Lee v. Kiku
Restaurant, 127 N.J. 170, 603 A.2d 503 (1992),
and Baxter v. Noce, 107 N.M. 48, 752 P.2d 240
(1988), the plaintiffs sued under dramshop
statutes for injuries suffered when they rode
with drunk drivers. The courts in both cases recognized
the importance of dramshop statutes in
protecting innocent victims of drunk behavior.
However, they also recognized the need to hold
individuals responsible to some degree for their
own safety. Under comparative negligence,
which divides liability among the parties in
accordance with each party’s degree of fault,
both goals are achieved.
A few courts have extended liability for
injuries to social hosts who serve a minor or an
intoxicated guest. In Kelly v. Gwinnell, 96 N.J.
538, 476 A.2d 1219 (1984), the New Jersey
Supreme Court found both the host and the
guest jointly liable when the guest had an accident
after drinking at the host’s house. The court
based the host’s liability on his continuing to
serve alcoholic beverages to the guest when he
knew the guest was intoxicated and likely to
drive a car. Similarly, in Koback v. Crook, 123
Wis.2d 259, 366 N.W.2d 857 (1985), the Wisconsin
Supreme Court held that a social host
was negligent for serving liquor to a minor guest
at a graduation party. The guest was later
involved in a motorcycle accident in which the
plaintiff was injured. However, the Ohio
Supreme Court refused to extend liability to the
social host in Settlemyer v. Wilmington Veterans
Post No. 49, 11 Ohio St. 3d 123, 464 N.E.2d 521
(1984). The court in Settlemyer held that assigning
liability to a social host is a matter better left
to the legislature.
All states and many local governments regulate
the sale of alcohol through the issuance of
licenses. These licenses limit the times and locations
where liquor sales can take place. The government
also regulates alcohol through taxation.
Current taxes on liquor serve the same dual purpose
as did the first excise tax on liquor when it
was proposed by ALEXANDER HAMILTON in
1791: they provide a source of revenue for the
government and, theoretically, discourage
overindulgence. Enforcement of the laws regulating
alcohol and taxing it is carried out by the
Bureau of ALCOHOL, TOBACCO, FIREARMS, AND
EXPLOSIVES (ATF), an agency of the U.S. JUSTICE
DEPARTMENT, and the Tax and Trade
Bureau (TTB), an agency of the TREASURY
DEPARTMENT, respectively. The collection of
alcohol revenues is important to the federal government:
in 2001, liquor taxes exceeded $7.6 billion.
During the 1980s and 1990s, public awareness
of the dangers of alcohol led to a number of
changes in the law. Specifically, special interest
groups such as MOTHERS AGAINST DRUNK DRIVING
(MADD) and Students Against Drunk
Driving (SADD) pressured state legislatures to
greatly increase enforcement and penalties for
driving while intoxicated (DWI). Criminal
statutes make DWI a misdemeanor offense. Historically,
few persons served jail time unless they
were repeat offenders. Moreover, prosecutors
often reduced DWI charges to lesser charges,
such as reckless driving, so defendants could
avoid the stain of a DWI conviction on their
driving records.
MADD was formed by mothers of children
who had been killed by drunk drivers. They were
outraged at the way the criminal justice system
treated DWI crimes. A major focus in the 1990s
for MADD was convincing state legislatures to
reduce the blood alcohol count needed to constitute
a DWI offense. Specific blood-alcohol
concentration (BAC) limits varied from state to state, but .10 percent BAC usually qualified as
driving while intoxicated. MADD sought to
reduce the BAC to .08 percent and successfully
lobbied many state legislatures. However, alcohol
wholesalers, retailers, and the hospitality
industry fought a lowered BAC, arguing that it
would hurt business and unfairly penalize
drivers.
The debate moved to the national level in
1998 when Congress first rejected and then
enacted legislation that requires all states to
lower the drunken driving arrest threshold to
.08 percent. States that failed to change their
laws would forfeit millions of dollars in federal
highway construction funds. By the end of 2002,
one-third of the states had not complied with
the law, arguing that studies did not show that a
reduction from .10 to .08 BAC saved many lives.
Opponents of the law contended that a .08 BOC
merely led to thousands of additional arrests of
casual drinkers who did not pose a serious safety
risk. The additional arrests absorbed more
police and prosecutorial resources, which would
not be offset by the federal highway funds.
An increased knowledge about the consequences
of alcohol consumption also had an
effect on the makers of alcohol. Concerned individuals
felt that liquor manufacturers had the
duty to warn consumers that their product may
be hazardous. Before 1987, manufacturers of
alcoholic beverages were immune from civil liability
for injuries resulting from the use of
liquor. Garrison v. Heublein, Inc., 673 F.2d 189
(7th Cir. 1982), held that the defendant did not
have a duty to warn the plaintiff of the dangers
of its product. The court stated that the dangers
inherent in the use of alcohol are “common
knowledge to such an extent that the product
cannot objectively be considered to be unreasonably
dangerous.”
Garrison was followed by other jurisdictions
until 1987 when Hon v. Stroh Brewery, 835 F.2d
510 (3d Cir. 1987), signaled a shift in judicial
sentiment. In Hon, the plaintiff ’s 26-year-old
husband died of pancreatitis attributable to his
moderate consumption of alcohol over a sixyear
period. The plaintiff alleged that the defendant’s
products were “unreasonably dangerous”
because consumers were not warned of the
lesser-known dangers of consumption. The
court, relying on the Restatement (Second) of
Torts § 402A, held that a product is defective if it
lacks a warning sufficient to make it safe for its
intended purpose. Since the general public is
unaware of all the health risks associated with
liquor consumption, the court found the defendant
liable for failing to warn the plaintiff.
The reasoning in Hon has been followed in
other cases, including Brune v. Brown-Forman
Corp., 758 S.W.2d 827 (Tex. Ct. App. 1988),
where the court found that the defendant’s
product was unreasonably dangerous because it
bore no warning about the dangers of excessive
consumption. The plaintiff ’s daughter, a college
student, died after consuming 15 shots of tequila
over a short period of time.
The duty of liquor manufacturers to warn
consumers of the hazards of drinking was codified
when Congress passed the Alcoholic Beverage
Labeling Act of 1988 (27 U.S.C.A. § 215).
The act requires all alcoholic beverage containers
to bear a clear and conspicuous label warning
of the dangers of alcohol consumption.
The United States’s long history of ambivalence
toward the consumption of alcoholic beverages
shows no sign of abating. At the same
time that manufacturers are required to warn
consumers about the health risks inherent in
liquor, some medical studies indicate that certain
health benefits may be associated with
moderate imbibing.
FURTHER READINGS
Alcoholics Anonymous World Services (AAWS). Twelve
Steps and Twelve Traditions. New York: AAWS.
Blocker, Jack S., ed. 1979. Alcohol, Reform and Society. Westport,
Conn.: Greenwood Press.
Boyd, Steven R., ed. 1985. The Whiskey Rebellion. Westport,
Conn.: Greenwood Press.
Cochran, Robert F., Jr. 1994. “‘Good Whiskey,’ Drunk Driving,
and Innocent Bystanders: The Responsibility of
Manufacturers of Alcohol and Other Dangerous Hedonic
Products for Bystander Injury.” South Carolina Law
Review 45 (winter).
Cordes, Renee. 1992. “Alcohol Manufacturer Held Partially
Liable for Student’s Death.” Trial 28 (December).
Goldberg, James M. 1992. “Social Host Liability for Serving
Alcohol.” Trial 28 (March).
Gorski, Terence T. 1989.Understanding the Twelve Steps. New
York: Prentice-Hall/Parkside.
Jacobs, James B. 1989. Drunk Driving: An American
Dilemma. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
Khoury, Clarke E. 1989. “Warning Labels May Be Hazardous
to Your Health: Common-Law and Statutory Responses
to Alcoholic Beverage Manufacturers’ Duty to Warn.”
Cornell Law Review 75.
Kyvig, David E., ed. 1985. Law, Alcohol, and Order.Westport,
Conn.: Greenwood Press.
Lender, Mark. 1987. Drinking In America: A History. New
York: Free Press.
Moore, Pamela A. 1993. “Lee v. Kiku Restaurant: Allocation
of Fault between an Alcohol Vendor and a Patron—
What Could Happen after Providing ‘One More for the
Road’?” American Journal of Trial Advocacy 17: 1.
Smith, Christopher K. 1992. “State Compelled Spiritual Revelation:
The First Amendment and Alcoholics Anonymous
as a Condition of Drunk Driving Probation.”
William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal 1 (fall).
Vartabedian, Ralph. 2002. “Some States Resist Lower Alcohol
Limits.” Los Angeles Times (December 30).
Wagenaar,Alexander C., and Traci L. Toomey. 2000. “Alcohol
Policy: Gaps Between Legislative Action and Current
Research.” Contemporary Drug Problems 27 (winter).

CROSS-REFERENCES
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, Bureau of; Automobile
Searches; Blue Laws; Organized Crime; Product Liability.

Alcoholics Anonymous

The courts have long struggled with the problem
of what sanctions to impose on people who violate
the law while under the influence of liquor. Punishing
these offenders fails to address the root cause
of the behaviors, the uncontrolled consumption of
alcohol. Many judges order offenders to undergo
alcohol-dependency treatment or counseling as part
of a sentence or as a condition of PROBATION.
One of the most popular programs for treating
alcoholism is Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). AA was
founded in 1935 by New York stockbroker Bill Wilson
and Ohio surgeon Robert Smith. Wilson and Smith
recognized their inability to control their drinking and
were determined to overcome their problem. They
developed the Twelve Steps, on which AA is based
and which have become the foundation for similar
self-help and recovery programs. AA comprises
ninety thousand local groups in 141 countries. Participation
is voluntary, and there are no dues or other
requirements. Members attend meetings run by nonprofessionals,
many of whom are recovering alcoholics.
The meetings offer fellowship, support, and
education to those with a desire to stop drinking.
Participants in AA declare that they cannot control
their drinking alone, and invoke a higher power to
help them overcome their dependence on alcohol.
AA’s Twelve Steps require a fundamental change in
personality and outlook. Members admit their powerlessness
over alcohol to themselves, to God, and to
their friends and families. They attempt to make
amends for any wrongs they have committed
because of alcohol abuse. Finally, through prayer,
meditation, and daily self-evaluation, AA members
strive for a radical transformation or spiritual awakening,
which results in changed perceptions, thought
processes, and actions. Finally, participants share
their experiences with others.

Although AA’s Twelve Steps speak of God, a
higher power, and spiritual awakening, AA maintains
that it is not a religious organization. However,
the group’s religious underpinnings and the tone of
its meetings, which may begin with the Serenity
Prayer and generally end with group recitation of
the Lord’s Prayer, are objectionable to some. Courts
have split over the issue of whether forced participation
in AA violates the FIRST AMENDMENT religion
clauses.

CROSS-REFERENCES
First Amendment; Religion.

Drinking on Campus: A Rite of Passage Out of Control?

Alcohol has had its advocates and its
critics, particularly on college campuses,
where the desires of students to
enjoy the rights and freedoms of adults
collide with the concerns of parents, university
officials, and the police. Although
some widely publicized studies from the
late 1980s and early 1990s indicated that
student drinking was at an all-time high,
threatening students’ health and academic
careers, others indicated that the
problem of student drinking was
overblown and on the decline. Those
concerned about the problem have proposed
a variety of solutions, with some
suggesting that lowering the drinking age
might diminish the lure of alcohol as a
forbidden fruit.

During the 1980s and
1990s, attention focused
increasingly on alcohol use by
college students. An article
published in the December 7,
1994, issue of the Journal of the
American Medical Association
reported the findings of a
study conducted by Dr. Henry Wechsler,
director of the Alcohol Studies Program
at the Harvard School of Public Health.
Wechsler and his team surveyed more
than 17,000 students, first-year students
to seniors, at 140 colleges in 40 states.
They concluded that college students
were drinking more than ever before.
In Wechsler’s study, 44 percent of the
students surveyed reported binge drinking,
defined as having five consecutive
drinks in a row for men or four in a row
for women, on at least one occasion in
the two weeks before the survey. (Wechsler
defined binge drinking at a lower
level of consumption for women because
women’s bodies take longer to metabolize
alcohol, causing them to be affected by
lesser amounts in a given time period.)
Nineteen percent of all the surveyed students
were found to be frequent binge
drinkers, meaning they had at least three
recent binges.

Similar findings were reported in
1994 by the Commission on Substance
Abuse at Colleges and Universities, a
group established by the Center on
Addiction and Substance Abuse at
Columbia University. Its report, titled
Rethinking Rites of Passage: Alcohol Abuse
on America’s Campuses, stated that white
males were the biggest drinkers on campus.
However, the commission noted a
sharp rise in the percentage of
college women who drank to
get drunk, from 10 percent in
1977 to 35 percent in 1994.
Unlike women students in earlier
studies, those in 1994
reported that they felt little or
no social stigma attached to
their drinking. At the same
time, they felt pressure to succeed, and
consuming alcohol was one way they
chose to relieve some of that pressure.
College administrators were not surprised
by the findings of the two studies.
The Harvard study reported that an overwhelming
majority of the supervisors of
security, deans of students, and directors
of health services at the colleges surveyed
considered heavy alcohol use a problem
on their campuses. And a survey by the
Carnegie Foundation revealed that college
presidents considered alcohol abuse
their most pressing challenge.
College presidents and administrators
have had practical reasons to be concerned
about student drinking. Reports
of drunken brawls, sexual assaults, even
deaths attributable to alcohol create public
relations nightmares for schools competing
for students. There has also been
the issue of liability: is a college responsible
for injuries inflicted by a drunk student?
In addition, much of the drinking
on campus has been done illegally by students
who are under age.

Academic administrators have found
particularly disturbing the increases in
drinking among women. According to
women students, the desire to compete
with men in all arenas, including social, is
one reason they feel the need to demonstrate
their equality by drinking as much
as or more than their male peers. A study
conducted by Virginia’s College of
William and Mary indicated that the
number of women at the college who had
five or more drinks at one sitting
increased from 27 percent to 36 percent
during the early 1990s.

Both men and women students have
cited intense peer pressure to join the
partying that takes place on college campuses,
which may begin as early as
Wednesday or Thursday night and last
through the weekend. At some schools,
alcohol-centered gatherings can readily
be found any night of the week. Administrators
acknowledge that partying may
have been just as hearty in the past but
note that before the late 1980s, it was generally
confined to the weekend.

The fallout from uncontrolled drinking
has been felt throughout campus life.
According to the report issued by the
Commission on Substance Abuse at Colleges
and Universities, 95 percent of violent
crimes and 53 percent of injuries on campus are alcohol related. In 90 percent
of all campus rapes, the assailant, the victim,
or both had been drinking. Sixty
percent of college women who acquire
sexually transmitted diseases, including
herpes and AIDS, report that they were
drunk at the time they were infected. The
financial costs are high as well. Students
spend $5.5 billion on alcohol each year,
more than they spend on books, coffee,
tea, sodas, and other drinks combined.
Although athletes might be expected to
take fewer risks with their health than
other students, the commission concluded
that they were equally affected by
alcohol abuse.

The commission also found that students
who belong to fraternities and sororities
drink three times more than their
non-Greek counterparts, averaging fifteen
drinks a week. Indeed, fraternity drinking
has been blamed in several disciplinary
actions and at least one death. In July 1994,
the national office of Alpha Tau Omega
(ATO) announced it was closing 11 of its
chapters for violating rules against hazing
and alcohol abuse.ATO had already closed
its chapter at Wittenberg University, in
Springfield, Ohio, after a newly recruited
pledge was hospitalized in January 1994
for alcohol poisoning. Similarly, the
national office of Beta Theta Pi (BTP)
announced in 1994 that it would intensify
enforcement of rules against hazing and
alcohol use in its chapters. According to
Erv Johnson, director of communications
for the national office, BTP was concerned
not only about the legal issues
involved but also about the image of the
fraternity and the national office’s desire
to emphasize that the primary purpose of
going to college is to learn.

Excessive drinking has a direct effect
on academic performance. Students with
an A average generally have 3.6 drinks a
week, C students average 9.5 drinks a
week, and D and F students consume
almost 18 drinks a week. According to
college officials, alcohol is implicated in
almost half of all academic problems and
is an issue for more than one-fourth of
dropouts.

Excessive drinking has obvious negative
consequences for the students who
engage in it, but it also affects those who
do not partake. During the early 1990s,
some students and school officials began
to speak out against the damage and disorder
that binge drinkers cause. Just as
nonsmokers brought awareness of the
effects of secondhand smoke, moderate
and nondrinking students called attention
to the results of “secondhand bingeing.”
Likewise, administrators, who had
traditionally tried to downplay the severity
of the problem, began to acknowledge
it and tried several approaches to controlling
it. One method involved having
peer counselors educate students about
the dangers of excessive drinking and
about the effects of their actions on others.
Another program provided students
with recreational options that did not
include alcohol. Some schools offered
houses or sections of dorms where residents
pledged not to drink or smoke. In
1994, the University of Pittsburgh considered
requiring first-year students to
take a one-credit course on responsible
drinking. The action came after a premed
student died after drinking 16 shots of
liquor and some beer in less than an
hour. However, most administrators
stopped short of preaching abstinence,
acknowledging that most students have
begun to drink before they enter college.
Some college officials advocate lowering
the legal drinking age, on the theory
that if alcohol is readily available to
students it may lose some of its appeal.
Susan Vaughn, coordinator of judicial
affairs at Miami University, of Ohio,
stated that laws setting the minimum
drinking age at 21 are unenforceable. She
argued that the higher drinking age
entices students to drink to excess in
order to prove their maturity and that
lowering the legal age would bring drinking
“out of the closet,” where it can be
properly supervised.

Others who have studied college
drinking vehemently dispute the wisdom
of lowering the minimum age. Joseph A.
Califano Jr., former health secretary and
president of the Center on Addiction and
Substance Abuse, asserted that lowering
the minimum drinking age would
encourage more drinking and that drinking
by college students should no longer
be thought of as a rite of passage but
rather should be considered a stumbling
block to success. His sentiments were
echoed by the Reverend Edward A. Malloy,
president of the University of Notre
Dame, who stated that heavy alcohol use
is an unhealthy trend that runs counter to
the goals of an educational institution.
Still, some people believe that learning
how to drink is part of the college experience,
essential to growing up and breaking
away from home and parental control.
Some 1990s evidence suggested that
drinking on college campuses was declining.
A 1994 survey of 300,000 students
nationwide found that nearly half
abstained from virtually all alcohol; in
1971, only one in four abstained.Another
1994 study indicated that, although binge
drinking remained a problem, light to
moderate drinkers were consuming fewer
drinks a week than their counterparts in
a 1982 survey. Some experts speculated
that these students were following the
lead of their parents, who drank less in
the 1990s than they had in the 1970s and
1980s. Others felt that the trend reflected
an increased awareness of health and
safety issues.

Additional evidence that student
drinking may not be as big a problem as some surveys have suggested appeared in
a 1994 study conducted by Dr. David
Hanson and Dr. Ruth Engs, of the State
University of New York College at Potsdam.
The Hanson and Engs study contradicted
the findings of the Center on
Addiction and Substance Abuse and indicated
that student drinking had declined
from that in previous years. Furthermore,
Hanson questioned the center’s
statistics on an increase in binge drinking
among college women, stating that if
such behavior had actually increased 250
percent between 1977 and 1994, other
studies conducted during that time
would have shown the same rise.
Some who noted a decrease in college
drinking speculated that it may have been
because college students of the 1990s
grew up with a higher minimum drinking
age and stricter drunk driving laws. They
asserted that it takes a number of years for
changes in the law to affect the targeted
population. With those changes finally
having the desired effect, they maintained,
it would be counterproductive to
return to a lower minimum age.
Concern over binge drinking on college
campuses continued to rise at the
beginning of the twenty-first century. In
2002, the Task Force on College Drinking
of the National Institute on Alcohol
Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) released
a study indicating that 1,400 college students
died and another 500,000 were
injured per year as a result of alcohol
abuse. The study also found that more
than 600,000 college students were
assaulted annually by another student
who had been drinking, and more than
70,000 were victims of alcohol-associated
sexual assaults or date rapes.
Also in 2002, the Harvard School for
Public Health College Alcohol Study
issued a report putting the number of
binge drinkers on colleges campuses in
2001 at 44 percent—the same amount as
in the school’s 1994 report. This second
report indicated that almost a decade of
trying to combat binge drinking by colleges
and universities had not succeeded
in driving down the number of binge
drinkers. Indeed, the 2002 survey found
an increase in binge drinking among several
groups, including binge drinkers at
women’s colleges, which rose from 24
percent to 32 percent of the population.
As of 2003, the most recent College
Alcohol Study found the number of frequent
binge drinkers, defined as students
who binged three or more times over a
two week period, had also remained
steady at 20 percent. These frequent binge
drinkers accounted for 70 percent of all
alcohol consumption on campus. Drinking
rates were highest among incoming
freshmen, males, members of fraternities
or sororities, and athletes. Students who
attended two-year institutions, religious
schools, commuter schools, or predominantly
or historically black colleges and
universities drank the least.
There were some positive aspects of
the 2002 College Alcohol Study report,
including the fact the number of high
school binge drinkers had dropped and a
larger number of students reported living
in substance-free housing. But the fact
that the number of binge drinkers failed
to drop despite these positive trends
showed colleges and universities what a
struggle they had on their hands. Senator
Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) held hearings
in 2002 shortly after both the College
Alcohol Study and the NIAAA study were
released in which he said “alcohol abuse
on college campuses has reached a point
where it is far more destructive than most
people realize and today threatens too
many of our youth.”

In response to the failure to bring
down binge drinking rates, colleges and
universities tried innovative approaches
to tackle the problem. One was the use of
“social norms” advertising, telling students
that drinking on colleges was less
prevalent than they thought, to convince
students that most students do not binge
drink, and that it is socially acceptable to
abstain. Critics pointed out, however,
that social norms advertising might simply
send the wrong message to administrators
and other policy makers—that
drinking on campus was no big deal.
Other universities tried harsher
enforcement policies, banning alcohol
from college-run housing, even eliminating
sororities and fraternities. Some
colleges also tried to curb alcohol related
advertising on campus, refusing to allow
sponsorship of university activities by beer
producers and asking bars and taverns near
campus to limit promotions to college students.
Several reinstated Friday and Saturday
morning classes as a way to encourage
students not to drink on weekends.

FURTHER READINGS
Okie, Susan. 2002. “Study Cites Alcohol Link
in Campus Deaths; 1,400 Die Yearly in
Accidents.”Washington Post (April 10).
Russell, Jenna. 2002. “Little Improvement Seen
in College Binge Drinking.” Houston Law
School: Boston Globe (March 25).
Sullivan,Michelle. 2002. “Students at Risk Due
to ‘Culture of Drinking.’” Clinical Psychiatry
News (June 1).