Colleges and towns must gang up to cut boozing

By Jane E. Brody

"College students spend about $5.5 billion a year on alcohol, more than they spend on books, soft drinks and other beverages combined. Alcohol is a factor in the deaths of about 1,700 college students each year..."

"A concerted effort has been made in the last decade to define the factors that prompt binge drinking on campuses and devise effective methods to combat it. What has become most obvious to researchers is that colleges cannot achieve this on their own..."

"'Basically, having programs to reduce binge drinking on college campuses in the absence of broad-based community interventions to do likewise may be a bit like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic,' said Dr. Timothy S. Naimi of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention..."

Full article available at http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080914/FEATURES07...