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Moeykens, & Castillo, 1994; Wechsler, Dowdall, Maenner, Gledhill-Hoyt, & Lee, 1998;
Wechsler, Lee, Kuo, & Lee, 2000; Wechsler, Lee, Kuo, Seibring et al., 2002). There are
two crucial differences, however: All four years, the CAS found that 2-in-5 students were
binge drinkers. Also, the CAS looked further into heavy drinking and uncovered a
disturbing trend. By 2001, 23 percent of non-abstainers had binged three or more times in
the past two weeks. Among students who drank at all in the past year, 23 percent reported
drinking on 10-or-more occasions in the past 30 days, and 48 percent reported drinking to
get drunk three or more times in the past 30 days (Wechsler, Lee, Kuo, Seibring et al.,
2002).
Other studies done during the same time frame confirmed the findings of the
CAS. In Engs’ 1994 study, 21 percent of students surveyed reported consuming five or
more drinks in one sitting once a week or more. Thirty-one percent of males consumed
over 21 drinks per week, and 19 percent of females consumed over 14 drinks per week
(Engs, Diebold, & Hanson, 1994). In a study of undergraduate students in the southwest,
over one-third reported binge drinking and 21 percent reported drinking at least three
times per week (Bennett et al., 1999). The smaller percentage of binge drinkers is
consistent with the CAS regional findings (Wechsler, Lee, Kuo, Seibring et al., 2002).
O’Malley and Johnston (2002) enlisted the CAS, Core Institute (CORE),
Monitoring the Future (MTF), National College Health Risk Behavior Survey
(NCHRBS), and National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA), to estimate
levels of alcohol use among college students. In a 1999 MTF study, 2-in-5 college
students reported engaging in heavy drinking at least once in the past two weeks. A 1995
NCHRBS study reported the same, as did a 1992-94 CORE study. The 1991-93 NHSDA
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