Statistics
Despite of the 21 year-old drinking age law, large numbers of underage college students are drinking, and often they are drinking heavily--more heavily, in fact, than at any point since records have been kept.
Consider these statistics:
- 44% of college students had engaged in a night of binge drinking in the past two weeks.
- The percentage of students who were binge drinkers is nearly uniform from freshman to senior year, even though students under 21 are prohibited from purchasing alcohol.
- 20% of freshman males consumed more than ten drinks at least once in the past 2 weeks.
- Over half the binge drinkers, almost one in four students, were frequent binge drinkers, that is, they binged three or more times in a two-week period.
- One in five students reported abstaining from drinking alcohol.
And what of the non-college population? A recent study found that rates of binge drinking were on the rise in the general population of American adults. 21- 25 year olds currently have the highest rates of binge drinking (18.0 episodes/person/ year; 2001) though they are closely followed by 18-20 year-olds (15.3 episodes/person/year; 2001).
Binge drinking episodes in three age cohorts
The fact is that binge drinking is increasing across the whole population. This graph shows that even though there has been an alarming increase in the rate and sheer number of binge drinking episodes reported by young adults, heavy drinking is not an age-specific plague. Binge drinking among young people does not occur in a vacuum. It can be better understood as part of an overarching social problem, one that affects the entire American population.