From Publishers Weekly
Drawing on interviews with and questionnaires collected from 50,000 students at 140 four-year colleges as part of the recent Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Studies, Wechsler, director of the study, and science writer Wuethrich offer a sobering overview of underage drinking. Parents who comfort themselves by saying that their children drink, but at least they don't do drugs, may be shocked by the authors' findings, which have appeared in academic journals. Binge drinking consuming five drinks at one sitting for men and four for women is a bigger problem than the one Joe Camel once posed to smoking-prone teens. In 1995, the economic cost of alcohol abuse which includes costs associated with such problems as crime, suicide and alcohol poisonings was $167 billion, $57 billion higher than drug abuse. Just over 70% of all unmarried students between the ages of 18 and 23 binge drink. The authors discuss the effect of drinking on campus crime, including sexual assault, where more than half of the victims and 74% of the perpetrators had been drinking. Wechsler and Wuethrich attribute collegiate alcohol abuse to what they refer to as an "alcohol-related culture," such as 21st birthday celebrations, where people are expected to "drink their age," and sorority and fraternity culture, where 75% of the students are binge drinkers. After delivering such grave news, Wechsler and Wuethrich offer a final chapter on what communities can do from enforcing laws to restricting happy hours to eradicate binge drinking. Their book is a dramatic and very real call for parents, educators and lawmakers to take action.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Harvard professor Wechsler, with the help of writer Wuethrich, makes the results of his survey of campus binge drinking accessible to parents and their college-bound students. What an eye-opener! The problem, he reports, is widespread, with an alcohol "culture" on many campuses (including at some of the most select schools in the country) fueling underage drinking. Devastating anecdotal accounts of tragedy associated with bingeing--among them a number of national headline-making stories--are powerful in themselves, but what follows is equally disturbing: accounts of administrators turning a blind eye to the problem so as not to alienate longtime contributors to college coffers; industry advertising (beer-guzzling canines) and production (alcopops) catering to a youth market; and new information on alcohol's physiological and emotional effects. To their great credit, however, the authors don't simply leave readers in a stew: they conclude with models for change--plans tailored to parents, students, and communities that want to get involved and pull together to address a problem that is becoming not only more widespread but also more deadly.
Stephanie ZvirinCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
