College living and the party hardy mentality

College is a time when students come face to face with peer pressure and its consequences. With binge drinking and marijuana use becoming more prevalent on college campuses around the country, it is more important than ever for students to know the dangers of partaking in hazardous activities. Drinking can lead to sexually promiscuous behaviors, can increase immune system deficiencies and have fatal consequences. Chronic marijuana use, five or more joints a week, can lead to lower IQ scores, less motivation and delayed responses. This in turn can cause some students to lose sight of their priorities. Graduate Nursing Coordinator Lucie Agosta said, “You get the loss of coordination and reasoning when you inhale marijuana. The high is a state of euphoria just like alcohol.” In a paper titled “Social Status and Binge Drinking,” author and sociologist Carolyn Hsu found that students of lower socio-economic statues who binge drink claimed their collegiate experience was more satisfying compared to their peers who didn’t drink. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, binge drinking is considered five or more drinks on a single occasion for men, and four or more for women, within two hours. The liver can only metabolize one drink an hour. One drink is five ounces of wine, 12 ounces of beer and one and a half ounce of 80-proof liquor. “That’s like a real glass of wine, not a big glass, a can of beer and a shot of alcohol. That’s a lot less than people typically realize a drink is. So one can actually get to the level of binge drinking pretty quickly,” said DeAnn Johnson, assistant professor of psychology. The stress of tests, home life and work can be a lot for students to handle when they first start as freshmen, but drinking is not the answer. Alcohol may make us feel invincible, sociable and relaxed, but it is a depressant, not a stimulant.