College binge drinking is present in different degrees of severity on most college campuses. The Crimson staff has provided an important service by studying and openly discussing alcohol issues at Harvard. It has offered insight into the ways in which Harvard both stands apart from and is similar to other college campuses, including a close look at the factors that may tend to mitigate heavy drinking at Harvard as well as the second-hand effects of binge drinking on other members of the community. The latter focus, on the social consequences of alcohol consumption, is vital to identifying and solving the problem of heavy drinking on college campuses.

As The Crimson noted, the College Alcohol Study at the School of Public Health has been actively involved in the assessment of problem drinking among college students. We have conducted three national studies, each including more than 14,000 students and covering 140 colleges and universities. The intent of these surveys has not been to emphasize the amount of binge drinking, as some critics allege, but rather to compile and analyze how students nationally describe their own drinking.

The basic approach of the CAS has been to view college drinking as a public health issue. In our society, we are accustomed to viewing most problems in a very individual light. For instance, a person's alcohol abuse is almost automatically viewed entirely as a psychological problem, a personal moral failing or a weakness of character. But serious alcohol problems are influenced by a number of factors, including the environment in which the individual is placed. The CAS takes the issue of problem drinking--which on college campuses most often takes the form of binge drinking--and views it not solely as an individual problem, but as a campus and community problem.

Why is it a community problem? The answer comes from the students who have participated in the surveys. They tell us about environmental factors that facilitate their drinking: the supply of cheap beer and other alcohol and a peer group that encourages heavy drinking--at nearby bars that cater to students, at all-you-can-drink parties or at football tailgates.

It is no coincidence that fraternity and sorority members binge drink nationally at twice the frequency of other college students. Over the years, fraternities have provided an environment with cheap and abundant access to alcohol. It is no coincidence that college students drink more than same-age peers not attending college. College traditions are steeped in alcohol, and in the old school song of almost any college you will find boasts about alcohol consumption.

The community issues raised by heavy drinking have led to the development of certain benchmarks that are indicative of larger problems. One such benchmark is that of binge drinking, which we define as five drinks in a row for men and four in a row for women--the "5/4" measure. This is not to say that every student who drinks at or above this level has a serious drinking problem and is in need of medical treatment. Instead, the reason we use this definition is that when we analyze the data--responses from more than 45,000 students over ten years--we find that it predicts other problems.

The more binge drinking occurs at a school, the more alcohol-related problems can be expected: problems with injuries, academic performance, violence and sexual abuse, among others. People who binge more than once a week constitute almost one-fourth of all students, yet they account for more than three-fifths of serious alcohol-related incidents on campuses and consume almost three-quarters of all the alcohol that college students drink.

Some higher-education groups have argued that we should get rid of the term "binge drinking." The Inter-Association Task Force on Alcohol and Other Substance Abuse Issues, founded by the oddly named BACCHUS (Boosting Alcohol Consciousness Concerning the Health of University Students) of the U.S. Inc., asked its 21 member organizations to pass resolutions seeking the removal of "binge" from media coverage of college drinking.