Another Sign of the Loss of "Lady-hood"
A recent study shows that female college students are even binge drinking nearly as much as men. While drinking is wrong (period), the study just serves as another reminder that we live in a time when ladies are not ladies anymore.A report released Thursday shows what researchers call an alarming rise in binge drinking among college women, part of a trend of rampant drinking and drug use on campuses nationwide.
And a second report released by the government concludes that young girls are increasingly turning to household inhalants to get high, a practice known as “huffing.”
It isn’t clear whether the studies, which were released separately, point to an overall trend in increased drug use among women and girls. But they are two examples of females catching up in two forms of substance abuse once dominated by males.
Drinking on Campus
Men have historically reported higher rates of drinking than women. But the difference now seems to have evaporated, according to a survey released by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (CASA), a nonprofit drug abuse research group.
The report found a 16% rise between 1993 and 2005 in the number of full-time college students who acknowledge frequent binge drinking. But binge drinking was up 22% in women, nearly double the increase in men. At the same time, 37% of college women said they drank on 10 or more occasions in the last month.
The study, using a survey of 2,000 students on 400 campuses, also found a steep rise in abuse of prescription pain drugs by college students. Nonmedical use of narcotic drugs like OxyContin and Vicodin shot up 343% between 1993 and 2005, the report shows.
The report “reveals not only a lack of progress, but rather an alarming public health crisis on America’s college campuses,” says Joseph Califano, president of CASA and a former Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare in the Carter administration.
