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WASHINGTON _ Students who attend college in states with strong alcohol control laws are less likely to be binge drinkers, according to a study released Tuesday.
The report, conducted by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), found that campus binge drinking rates were one-third lower in states that had four or more laws targeting high volumes of alcohol sales than states that did not.
"The good news is that if more states and communities take relatively straightforward actions _ such as enacting laws that discourage high-volume sales _ they could see fewer drinking problems on college campuses and in their broader populations as well," said Toben Nelson, the studies author.
"Environmental factors such as low prices, special promotions of alcohol, and high density of alcohol outlets near college campuses support heavier drinking by college students," Nelson said.
Binge drinking _ often defined as five or more drinks in a row on a single occasion _ has been linked to 1,400 college student deaths every year, as well as injuries, rapes, assaults, unsafe sex and poor student performance.
According to the study, college students spend more than $5.5 billion a year on alcohol _ more than they spend on textbooks, soft drinks, tea, milk, juice and coffee combined.
Researchers compared binge-drinking behavior on college campuses to data from 40 states provided by the CDC on binge drinking in the general population, and found correlations between the highest and lowest states.
They found that the rate of binge drinking among college students was 36.1 percent in the 10 states with the lowest rates of adult binge drinking, and 52.7 percent in the 10 states with the highest adult rates.
According to the Alcohol Team at the CDC's National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, most alcohol purchases and consumption occur off campus. Therefore, laws and policies aimed at limiting consumption in the general population also help limit binge drinking by college students in the same area.
"We recommend that states and communities implement effective prevention strategies for binge drinking, including increasing state alcohol taxes, enforcing minimum legal drinking age laws, and enforcing laws prohibiting alcohol sales to already intoxicated persons," said Dr. Robert Brewer, leader of the CDC Alcohol Team.
John Fitzpatrick, a spokesman for the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America, said that the report confirms much of what people already consider common sense about alcohol abuse: "More regulation translates to less abuse."
"We need strong controls to eliminate binge drinking," Fitzpatrick said. Citing a pending U.S. Supreme Court decision on allowing alcohol sales over the internet, he said, "This is a wake-up call to remind all of us that there are grave dangers to deregulating alcohol."
Vanessa Maltin's e-mail address is vmaltin@coxnews.com
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Cox News Service
