University challenge

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Kerry Rogan looks at a new campaign targeted at studentsStudents and drinking are a well-established combination. Like gin and tonic or real ale and...

Kerry Rogan looks at a new campaign targeted at students

Students and drinking are a well-established combination. Like gin and tonic or real ale and sandals, the two go hand-in-hand and have done for many years.

Every graduate has tales to tell about high-spirited nights in the student union - and the tales all have one thing in common in that they all involve excessive drinking.

That is, until now.

Students are the latest group to be targeted in an attempt to stamp out the proud British culture of binge-drinking. Fighting a losing battle? Maybe, but this time the National Union of Students (NUS), individual universities and, perhaps most importantly, licensees of student bars, have got on board.

Drinks promotions, happy hours, profit-oriented licensees and heavy-handed doorstaff have all been criticised for contributing to students' bacchanalian lifestyle.

Last month the dean of St Catharine's College, Cambridge, hit national headlines when he imposed strict rules to curb students' drunken behaviour.

He claimed the first few weeks of the new term had produced two incidences of alcohol poisoning and, as he put it, "excesses of drunken, naked girls".

All of these booze-induced misdemeanors were, he said, damaging the academic reputation of the college.

But it did not stop there. Suddenly there were tales of badly-behaved undergraduates emerging from universities all over the country and what used to be seen as young people letting off steam was being viewed as socially unacceptable and, at worst, life threatening.

In the past 18 months several students have died following excessive drinking. One 21-year-old fell to his death after scaling a crane when drunk and another fell out of a window after drinking all day.

The Government claims more than half of British men and one third of British women drink "hazardously" and doctors at university health centres say they are in no doubt that this rise in drinking is attributable to a similar rise in cut-price alcohol promotions in student bars.

Michael Sansbury, a doctor at the University of Wales in Swansea, said: "My impression is that the rise in drinking tallies with happy hours and vodka promotions. Bars compete to attract students."

Earlier this year the trade suffered a blow to its image when a student died after choking on his own vomit outside a bar in Scotland. The inquiry into his death partly blamed licensees who were, according to the sheriff, more concerned with profit than customers' well-being.

Unfair, perhaps, but such a statement cannot be ignored and the industry must be seen to be taking control.

What can licensees do to stop the rise in bingeing and halt the damage that is being done to the profession?

Bars that are popular with students are being encouraged to cut the number of promotions they offer. In Ireland, licensees have agreed to take part in a ban on campus advertising of happy hours and promotions.

The Portman Group's If You Do Do Drink, Don't Do Drunk campaign has been adopted by the NUS as this year's alcohol awareness scheme. Licensees are being urged to display the posters in their outlets.

"This is a tough message to get across," said director Jean Coussins.

"Occasional excesses are part of a normal learning curve, but our research shows that a million young adults are drinking regularly just to get drunk."

Many student unions are also running their own campaigns. Licensees of student bars are being asked to be vigilant and promote alcohol awareness.

In Newcastle University students union staff plan to stick flags in students' unattended drinks. Reading "do you realise this drink could have been spiked?" the flags are intended to alert drinkers to the danger of date-rape drugs.

There is no doubt the campaigns are having a certain degree of success, but students' drinking culture is well-established and difficult to control.

While students from other countries look on bemused at our drink-soaked academics, the same argument comes up once again.

Relax licensing hours, trade experts and the police agree, and binge-drinking, whether by students in union bars or people in the high street, will be cut.

As one reader commentedon thePublican.com: "The reason we appear to drink more than our foreign counterparts is probably based on units of alcohol consumed per hour during an evening of drinking. Of course our units are going to be higher - our pubs are only open for a couple of hours a night. I say change our licensing hours."

Perhaps the students are not the only ones to need educating - the Government could probably learn a few things as well.

Related stories:

Licensees encouraged to curb binge-drinking of students (8 November 2001)

Cambridge students told to stay sober or risk education (31 October 2001)

Drink like Johnny Foreigner! (16 August 2001)

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