WASHINGTON, March 15 (UPI) -- More college students are abusing illegal substances, including an enormous increase in the rate of drinking, says a new report.
Nearly 1.8 million, or 22.9 percent, of full-time college students meet the clinical criteria for substance dependence and abuse, according to a report released Thursday by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University in New York. Criteria include an increased tolerance and withdrawal symptoms.
The percentage is nearly three times the 8.5 percent of the general population who are dependent on substances. This reveals "not only a lack of progress, but rather an alarming public health crisis on America's college campuses," said CASA Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Joseph Califano Jr.
The report was based on a survey of 2,000 students, 400 college administrators, researchers, eight focus groups and 800 reviews of books and reports from 2002 to 2006.
Parents and the government are "failing to become part of the solution" and instead "have become part of the problem," Califano said.
Many of the college administrators surveyed admitted there is not enough devotion to substance-abuse prevention, Califano said.
"There's this culture of acceptance, that this is a rite of passage. We're playing Russian roulette with the best and brightest people we have."
Some academic and health experts were puzzled by the statistics presented by the report, calling them inaccurate.
Dennis Martell, a health educator at Michigan State University, called CASA's numbers "ridiculous," stating the number of students who suffer from clinical dependence is closer to 4 percent. He has conducted his own research in the field.
Peter McPherson, a former MSU president, said the issue is at the forefront of a university's priorities.
"I don't know a single university president who doesn't constantly think of how to solve this problem. This is a problem that students die from," McPherson said. One of his students died in 1998 of alcohol poisoning.
The analyses of Martell and CASA were done differently, yielding varied results, Califano said.
Califano and colleagues urge colleges and universities to take preventative measures to lower the rate of substance abuse, including banning substance advertisements on campus, providing screening and treatment for at-risk students and scheduling classes and exams Monday through Friday -- and in some cases through Saturday -- to reduce the substance abuse that occurs on weekends.
The study also looked at drug-use trends and found a major increase in prescription-drug abuse on college campuses. Since 1993 student use of opioids such as Percocet, Vicodin and OxyContin has more than quadrupled from 0.7 percent to 3.1 percent, and student use of tranquilizers like Xanax and Valium has risen from 0.4 percent to 2.2 percent, according to the report.
