Alcohol is a drug, and in Orange County, it is the most abused drug by teens and young adults. The practice of getting trashed, tanked, wasted and bombed seems to be synonymous with high school and college parties.
This perception, however, while not entirely false, may be exaggerated. During the August meeting of the Orange County Underage Drinking Task Force, William DeJong posed that the drinking problem may be high because of falsely perceived social norms. DeJong is a professor at Boston University and former director of the federally funded Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention.
During the task force’s monthly meeting, DeJong spoke of the realities of underage drinking and possible methods for curtailing the problem in Orange County. A large part of the underage-drinking problem is derived from the misperceptions young people have of their peers’ drinking habits, he said. Through marketing, media and the movies, students believe binge drinking is a large part of young adult life when in reality the majority of students abstain from alcohol.
One study of 48,000 students on 100 campuses nationwide found that at campuses where most students said they drank once a month, 90 percent presumed that their peers drank weekly or even daily. In another study cited by DeJong, just 23 percent of college-aged students drink in a high-risk way (consuming at least four drinks at one time on three or more occasions within a two-week period.) “Many people are surprised to hear this,” DeJong said.
“It is a false presumption that college drinking is worse than ever. In fact, the problem lies with a relatively small group of students.” But even this seemingly low percentage of college-aged problem drinkers does not mean binge drinking is something that should be taken lightly. DeJong suggested that the best approach for curtailing underage drinking is by advertising these statistics in what he calls a “social norms campaign.”
Instead of emphasizing the dangers of underage drinking through scare tactics, he recommended that the task force educate the public about the large number of students who choose to drink responsibly or abstain from alcohol altogether.
Chief Mike McCoy, the Orange County Public Safety director and cochair of the task force, agrees that the most important preventive measure isn’t through stricter law enforcement — it’s through education. “We won’t end underage drinking, but I think a better educated workforce, student body and public have always had positive results,” McCoy said. Education starts with changing the perception the students have about college drinking.
“I think that many students think everyone is doing it, so when you get a young person, especially someone taking the summer off right before college, there’s a lot of social pressure [to drink],” McCoy said. “The real significant strides or advancements will be made when the masses think it’s not smart to drink, that it’s risky.” Part of this education will come from schools and the community, but McCoy emphasized that parents still play a large role in alcohol education for their children.
“To start parenting about alcohol when your child is about to leave [home] is like teaching someone to drive after they’re already behind the wheel of the car. [Alcohol education] starts when they’re young, so hopefully when they become young adults they’ll be ready for college life.”
Treating college-aged students under the age of 21 like children is a tactic that is likely to backfire and alienate them, McCoy continued. Instead, he said parents just need to show their concern. “I think that’s what we need to say to our young people: You don’t have it figured out like you will at 25 and 30. We just want you to be safe,” he said.
The Orange County Underage Drinking Task Force was formed partly in reaction to last year’s local tragedy when at least two underage-alcohol-related deaths were confirmed in the community. Both were University of Central Florida students and both were just 18 years old. The task force is a multi-jurisdictional effort to address underage drinking through education and prevention, access to alcohol by underage persons, enforcement, and retailer responsibility.
