BOZEMAN
The nation's acting Surgeon General says it's time to change the culture of drinking on college campuses. Rear Adm. Steven Galson says that, far from being a harmless rite of passage, alcohol consumption by college students results in hundreds of thousands of injuries and assaults every year. He says binge drinking also leads to thousands of deaths and sexual assaults. The nation's chief medical officer says many parents and college administrators "benignly accept the culture of drinking as a part of the college experience," but community members must push back. Speaking Wednesday at Montana State University, Galson said the culture could be changed by making alcohol harder to get on campus, giving students nonalcoholic alternatives at night, and creating alcohol-free dorms. Galson also said no one key exists For reducing underage binge drinking on campus. Real change will come by taking many small steps, he said, comparing it to the successful effort to reduce smoking in American culture. More than 100 college presidents and chancellors recently called for a reexamination of the United States' 21-year-old drinking age. The administrators signed a statement that says current law has created "a culture of dangerous, clandestine binge-drinking." In Montana, the Democratic Party platform convention passed a non-binding resolution suppor t ing legi s lat ion to "address the double standard" of the 21-year-old drinking age versus legal adulthood at age 18 for all other purposes. Galson said the discussion about lowering the drinking age is a distraction to the larger goal to "achieve cul tural change." He said he has not seen sufficient data supporting the argument that lowering the drinking age would curb binge drinking. (AP)
