Despite their reluctance to publicly release numbers that would demonstrate an increase in UHS admittances, administrators have said that any increase can largely be attributed to the College’s 2007 amnesty policy—which promises no disciplinary action against intoxicated students seeking medical attention and those who help them.

But in the past decade, the numbers of alcohol related admittances had already skyrocketed before the introduction of the amnesty policy.

By 2005—two years before adopting the policy—the number of UHS admittances due to alcohol-related sickness had increased by nearly nine-fold over six years, according to an interview with Travia in February 2010.

Then, from 2005 until 2008 alcohol-related admittances remained relatively flat. Since then, alcohol hospitalizations have been on the rise.

UHS numbers are not the only signal that high-risk drinking at Harvard continues to be a problem.

HUPD tracks the number of alcohol-related medical calls they receive each academic year, and during the 2008-2009 school year HUPD saw 106 incidents involving undergraduates. In 2009-2010, HUPD responded to 123 calls. This year, 183 students called HUPD—a 49 percent increase from the previous year. HUPD spokesperson Steven G. Catalano provided the numbers to The Crimson.

It is these types of statistics that are of particular concern to administrators.

“If we had one transport of a student every weekend, that would still be worrisome,” Hammonds says.

WORK HARD, PLAY HARD

These UHS and HUPD numbers reflect some of the more drastic cases of binge drinking on campus. And, while not all cases land students in beds at Stillman Infirmary, they are part of an unhealthy culture that tutors, students, and administrators say has infiltrated Harvard social life.

“Sometimes you’ll finish up something really big and it’ll be like ‘I just really want to forget about everything,’” one senior explains. “People think ‘I’ve worked hard, so I’ve earned this.’”

It is this mentality that college administrators say is most worrying, as it can lead to binge drinking—generally defined as four drinks for women and five drinks for men in under a two hour time period.

Lane says that he thinks Harvard undergraduates approach drinking with “the same efficiency” as they do their academics and drink with the goal of getting drunk.

He says that he sees his students beginning to drink later in the evening as a result of their studies, causing them to gravitate toward hard alcohol and leaving less time for them to process their drinks.

Among students interviewed for this article, nearly everyone said that hard alcohol is the drink of choice on campus.