Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 31, 1991 TAG: 9103310081
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B/6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Baltimore Sun
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Change the confiscation to drugs, however, and the image no longer seems preposterous. Yet, some college officials say, despite the raids a week ago at the University of Virginia in which agents seized drugs and the three frat houses in which the they were found, it is alcohol that students are more likely to abuse on campuses today.
"I don't want to say drug use is not a problem, but it's nowhere near the problem alcohol is," said Charles E. Maloy, associate vice president for student services at Towson State University in Maryland and director of the campus counseling center. "We have a serious alcohol problem in this country, but we don't like talking about it. And the war on drugs focuses our attention away from it."
A federally funded nationwide survey of college students released earlier this year bears this out. It shows that while drug use has dropped dramatically in the past decade - by as much as 80 percent in the case of some types of drugs - alcohol use has tapered off only slightly.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse survey of about 1,300 college students found that 15 percent of them had used drugs in 1990, compared to 38 percent of students surveyed 10 years earlier. Most students who use drugs choose marijuana rather than harder ones, such as cocaine and heroin. Heavy alcohol use during this same decade dropped negligibly, from 44 percent to 41 percent.
"Not only is use [of drugs] down, but tolerance is down," said Lloyd D. Johnston, a University of Michigan researcher who headed the survey. "Fewer young people find it acceptable to use drugs. The norms among college students have definitely changed."
Johnston attributed the decline in drug use to the changing image of drugs over the decade, from glamorous to dangerous, from a symbol of anti-establishment leanings to something darker and more criminal.
"As we've gotten farther and farther away from the Vietnam era and all the social alienation among young people, drug use has lost all its symbolic value," Johnston said. "It used to be a symbol of protest, a symbol of solidarity with the new youth movement.
"The other thing that happened was that enough time has transpired that we've become more aware of the dangers of drug use."
by CNB