Advocate Online

They're Talking On Campus. . .

. . .About binge drinking as a major public health problem among college students, according to a report from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Results from the report, based on data from the 2001 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, indicate that college students exceeded their peers in all types of alcohol use, including binge drinking.

The study also found that 18 percent of college students suffered alcohol-related problems, compared with 15 percent of their non-college peers. Alcohol consumption is linked to 1,400 student deaths, 500,000 injuries, 600,000 assaults, and 70,000 sexual assaults on college campuses each year.

. . .About the first amendment going too far in protecting free speech, in the eyes of many high school students, according to University of Connecticut researchers.

More than a third of students surveyed said the First Amendment goes "too far" in the rights it guarantees, and nearly half of students said that newspapers shouldn't be allowed to publish freely without government approval of stories.

When asked whether people should be allowed to express unpopular views, 97 percent of teachers and 99 percent of school principals said yes. Only 83 percent of students did.

"These results are not only disturbing; they are dangerous," said Hodding Carter III, president of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the study's sponsor. "Ignorance about the basics of this free society is a danger to our nation's future."