STUDENTS MUST MAKE INFORMED DECISIONS ABOUT DRINKING

The collegiate experience should be more than what is learned in the classroom. The first time many young people are outside daily parental supervision, students experience new-found freedom and develop a sense of self-reliance. Some lessons, however, are hard-won, and liberation carries its dangers. That is the concern of many college administrators when it comes to student abuse of alcohol. The concern is well-placed.

At Southeast Missouri State University, and probably at most of the nation's colleges, student drinking is part of the social mix, lubricating parties and allowing young people a measure of discovery in the absence of mothers and fathers. Booze is cheap and, with the friendly assistance of upperclassmen of legal age, easily accessible. Very often, on dares, through peer pressure or out of plain recklessness, students will be drawn into alcohol-related contests, chugging away in the spirit of a party but dangerously and rapidly raising their body's blood-alcohol level. Used to the extreme, alcohol is as toxic to an individual as anything one might find on a store shelf. And that says nothing about the peril posed by alcohol consumed by those who get behind the wheel of a car.

Southeast has a person on staff who concentrates on substance abuse prevention. This specialist cites a campus survey that indicates:

-- 53 percent of students polled see nothing wrong with playing drinking games;

-- 46 percent of students say they had been on a drinking binge (five drinks or more in a row) at least once in the previous two weeks;

-- 29 percent believe it acceptable to get drunk in public;

-- 56 percent think it is acceptable to get drunk in private;

-- 45 percent say drinking alcohol had caused them to drive unsafely.

Added to the possible bodily and emotional harm done by the alcohol, there are also the consequences of errant behavior induced by the booze. Forty-one percent of students in the Southeast survey report they had sex under the influence of alcohol or drugs with persons they otherwise would not have had sex with. The implications of that, in the context of problems with AIDS and unwanted pregnancies, are especially frightening.

Young people get a lot of signals from society. From their peers, the message might be sent that drinking is a normal and carefree form of collegiate entertainment, one that carries no personal downside. During this week, Alcohol Awareness Week at higher education institutions across the nation, students are getting the other side of the story.

We hope the word gets out, not as a way of dictating student choices about legal activities, but to allow these young people to make informed choices about drinking. College should teach students that life is about judgment, and alcohol stands as an impairment to good judgment. The decisions students make can affect the rest of their lives. It's important that the decisions are thoughtful ones.