Theres way too many deaths

[FashionWeek]

I just can believe it ... im in shock.. take a look at how many threads are for deaths .. am i the only one shocked??!! most of the reasons of death are something that could of been avoided.. BE CAREFUL YALL <3
*prays for any victims/friends/family*

[hoosier]

It is sad, and many of these deaths come at what should be a very happy time: a new pledge, a new initiate, or a 21st birthday.

On a similar sad note, two high school students died in the Atlanta area in a drag race (while on their way to church). They were the 15th and 16th teen auto deaths in the area in 2004.

[James]

Just to put it in perspective again. 16 teen auto deaths in the last year just in the Atlanta area is a number greater than half the total number of college alcohol deaths in the last 19 years.

If Hoosiers article is accurate there have been 28 alcohol deaths nation wide in the last 19 years.

Alcohol overdose and death on college campuses is a very small problem except for the people the die and those directly affected.

[DeltaSigStan]

Originally posted by hoosier
On a similar sad note, two high school students died in the Atlanta area in a drag race (while on their way to church). They were the 15th and 16th teen auto deaths in the area in 2004.

Sorry to hear about that hoosier. I'm a strong critic of illegal drag racing (Lost a friend to it, plus I don't see why you can't go to the stadium and do it legally), and I believe penalties for street racing should be tougher.

Let's see what happens when we take the rice rocket away from Johnny Tran.....

It's like that time my friend's mom had his Civic impounded, and he had JUST suped it up.

[DeltAlum]

Originally posted by James
[B]If Hoosiers article is accurate there have been 28 alcohol deaths nation wide in the last 19 years.

Except that the number of deaths from alcohol related auto injuries, falls, fights and others would make that number exponentially higher.

Two years ago there was a freshman who got drunk at off campus parties, walked into a river and drowned.

Sorry, but I think that low number is misleading.

[AGDee]

There was also one at the University of Michigan 2 or 3 years ago where the woman fell out of her dorm room window while extremely intoxicated. That cause of death would have been listed as a fall, but the cause of the fall would have been the intoxication. Would the number of alcohol deaths include drunk driving fatalities too?

Dee

[madmax]

Originally posted by James
Just to put it in perspective again. 16 teen auto deaths in the last year just in the Atlanta area is a number greater than half the total number of college alcohol deaths in the last 19 years.

If Hoosiers article is accurate there have been 28 alcohol deaths nation wide in the last 19 years.

Alcohol overdose and death on college campuses is a very small problem except for the people the die and those directly affected.

Hoosier only posted a small fraction of the alcohol deaths.

According to someone that was on the Today show a few weeks ago there are about 1400 drinking related deaths a year.


TIBBLES: "Binge drinking and initiation rituals aside, the consequences of college drinking are deadly, some 1400 deaths attributed to alcohol abuse each year."

[DeltAlum]

Originally posted by madmax
Hoosier only posted a small fraction of the alcohol deaths.

According to someone that was on the Today show a few weeks ago there are about 1400 drinking related deaths a year.

Exactly.

Whether it's alcohol poisoning, falling out of a window, fighting, auto accidents -- whatever -- there is a serious college drinking problem.

If there are 1400 deaths, you have to wonder how many more injuries there are as well.

[James]

You know I love all of you but you guys are killing me. Absolutely killing me with your blind credulity. Here is an article about this "new statistic".

College Drinking Study Is Intoxicating Scam
Friday, April 12, 2002
By Steven Milloy

This week’s news about excessive college drinking is another shocking example of statistical deception by shameless activists manipulating a media panting for sensationalism.

USA Today’s "College drinking kills 1,400 a year, study finds" was the typical headline.

The frenzy was sparked by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism’s report, "A Call to Action: Changing the Culture of Drinking at U.S. Colleges."

In addition to the alleged death toll, the report’s other alarmist claims include: 500,000 college students are injured while under the influence of alcohol; 600,000 are assaulted; 70,000 are the victims of sexual assault; 400,000 had unsafe sex; 25 percent have academic problems; and 150,000 have alcohol-related health problems or tried to commit suicide.

If true, these figures would make college worthy of a Surgeon General’s warning.

But none of these likely-to-be-immortalized factoids resulted from an actual count. They’ve been produced by statistical guesswork.

"A Call to Action" doesn’t present the analysis behind these claims. It only references a new study simultaneously published in the March 2002, Journal of Studies on Alcohol. The study’s lead author is Ralph Hingson of the Boston University School of Public Health.

As an example of how goofy Hingson’s numbers are, here’s how he calculated the headline-grabbing estimate of 1,400 deaths.

There are about 25.5 million 18- to 24-year-olds living in the U.S., according to U.S. Census data. Thirty-one percent of this age group are enrolled as full or part-time students in two-or four-year colleges.

The number of alcohol-related motor vehicle crash deaths among 18-24 years olds during 1998 is 3,674; 31 percent of this figure is 1,138.

Similarly applying the 31 percent factor to the 991 alcohol-related, non-traffic deaths among 18- to 24-year-olds in 1998 results in an additional 307 deaths.

Adding the 307 and 1,138 figures equals the alleged 1,445 alcohol-related deaths annually among college students.

But Hingson relies on a key, but unsupported assumption. It does not automatically follow that college students constitute 31 percent of alcohol deaths simply because 31 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds are college students.

The simplistic reasoning is equivalent to assuming that because women constitute about half the population, they commit half of all crime. In fact, men commit more than 75 percent of crime.

The definition of what constitutes an "alcohol-related" death is another problem.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration defines a fatal traffic crash as being alcohol-related if either a driver or a pedestrian had a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.01 grams per deciliter (g/dl).

But 0.10 g/dl is the traditional level at which persons are considered to be intoxicated. Just because a person involved in a fatal accident has a measurable BAC doesn’t mean that the alcohol caused or contributed to the accident.

Even accepting Hingson’s results at face value, his study is still silly.

There isn't a statistically-meaningful difference in rates of alcohol-related problems between college students and non-college students.

Hingson estimates, for example, that 41 percent of college students binge on occasion as compared to 36.5 percent of non-college students. But the relative difference between the two estimates (14 percent) is too small to be reliably detected in his crude data and analysis.

Also, if college students have alcohol problems in proportion to their presence in the age group, why crackdown only on college students? Are the other 69 percent of 18- to 24-year olds not worthy of attention?

Why is Hingson playing fast and loose with the data?

He’s on the board of directors of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD).(emphasis added)

Although MADD began in 1980 with the laudable goal of reducing drunk-driving fatalities, it has strayed beyond its original mission. "If truth-in-advertising laws applied to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, its name would be changed to Mothers Against All Drinking of Any Kind," says the Center for Consumer Freedom.

MADD’s crusade has turned into a prohibitionist movement. Focusing on college kids and pressuring universities seems to be the new tactic to implement its misguided goal.

Mark Goldman, co-chair of the NIAAA task force that produced "A Call to Action" told the Los Angeles Times, "Our society has always dealt with [college drinking] with a wink and a nod, as a rite of passage. But the statistics that Ralph Hingson has put together are stunning to all of us, even the most seasoned researchers."

This scam must be very intoxicating. How can "seasoned researchers" fall for such obviously flawed analysis? Will they also be using the movie Animal House as evidence of excessive college drinking?

There is no question that some alcohol abuse occurs among college students as it does among all 18- to 24-year-olds. However, this is hardly news or an excuse for junk science.

[Tom Earp]

James, that is so true!

Anyone with common sense knows that some number cruncher can come up with any type of figures they want.

Then the problem is whether to beleive them or not!

How many people said the Earth was flat? How many people beleived them?

For every +, there is a -.

[DeltAlum]

We love you, too, James, but the methodology could work in the other direction as well. It's possible (as in the case of men committing 70+ percent of the crime) that the 31% of the agegroup who are in college might account for 70% of the alcohol deaths and injuries.

But, let's assume you are correct and that the 1400 number is high. At what number does it become OK? 1000? 700? 250?

Where does it start to the a problem instead of a statistic.

I think it's a problem now.

[James]

IT depends on how you frame the problem. I am missing the core of the argument as well as the suggestions for new cures.

Is the problem that alcohol is inherently bad?

Is the problem that drinking to feel the effects of alcohol bad? And I don't know what the point of drinking alcohol is if you are not going to feel something from it.

Is the problem that people under 21 drink?

Are responses proportional?

If someone dies on campus should a campus go dry?

If we are really serious about stopping underage drinkers shouldn't we make it a felony? We make druge use a felony (of course that doesn't work).

I think we have our programs in place, and I think for the most part they work or a lot more people would be dying. Education and experience is the key.

We already mentioned that we can easily solve the under-age drinking issue in Greek Life by either limiting members to those over 21 or kicking out anyone that drinks under 21, zero tolerance.

If we are not going to do the only two things that we can actually directly control like that, then we continue as we are doing.

Originally posted by DeltAlum
We love you, too, James, but the methodology could work in the other direction as well. It's possible (as in the case of men committing 70+ percent of the crime) that the 31% of the agegroup who are in college might account for 70% of the alcohol deaths and injuries.

But, let's assume you are correct and that the 1400 number is high. At what number does it become OK? 1000? 700? 250?

Where does it start to the a problem instead of a statistic.

I think it's a problem now.

[33girl]

Perhaps we should make common sense a part of being admitted to college in addition to grades and extracurriculars.

If you weigh 125 pounds and think you can ingest 40 drinks with no ill effect, I'm sorry, but that makes you stupid.

MADD really needs to rethink their asinine methods and attitudes before they lose any smidgen of credibility they may have left. They should get together with the idiots who think 25% of college women get raped.

[James]

More if you add in those that were raped but didn't know it.

Originally posted by 33girl


MADD really needs to rethink their asinine methods and attitudes before they lose any smidgen of credibility they may have left. They should get together with the idiots who think 25% of college women get raped.