Tuesday, March 4, 1997
Survey reveals UCLA students’ attitudes toward drinking and
smoking marijuanaBy Allison Elmore
Daily Bruin Contributor
A seemingly endless river of beer engulfs his throat as the
fraternity brother chugs yet again from the beer bong. His T-shirt,
emblazoned with his Greek letters, grows damp with perspiration and
the steady trickle of liquid that leaks from his mouth flooded with
cheap beer. Machismo surges through his veins as the deafening
chants of his fraternity brothers drive him to continue.
While such testosterone-tinged images of college partying tend
to be settled in the minds of incoming freshmen upon arrival at
their respective institutions, it does not take them long to
realize that the stereotypical inebriated fraternity boy, the
supposed longtime champion of student alcohol and drug abuse, is
rapidly becoming an endangered species. This appears to have become
the case at UCLA.
According to UCLA’s 1995 Student Health Services survey, the
average number of alcoholic drinks consumed weekly among
undergraduates was only three, with 50 percent of the undergraduate
student population downing no more than one drink per week.
Despite modest figures, the survey demonstrates alcohol to
unquestionably be the favorite drug at UCLA. Questions then remain
as to what motivates students to become blitzed when they drink, or
to even drink in the first place.
"Artificial games and situations" are what UCLA substance abuse
specialist Clive D. Kennedy argues to be a common impetus for
students overusing alcohol. Drinking games, the common fare of
gatherings which combine college students with liquor, tend to
encourage binge drinking.
Viewed as "high-risk" alcohol use by medical professionals,
binge drinking is typically defined by the consumption of five or
more drinks in one sitting.
As indicated by the 1995 Student Health survey, just 35 percent
of those undergraduates polled reported binge drinking within the
prior month. According to the same survey, residents of Greek
houses, however, were nearly twice as likely to have engaged in
"high-risk" alcohol use.
Still, UCLA’s figure falls significantly below the nationwide
estimate provided by the National Center on Addiction and Substance
Abuse at Columbia University. CASA officials approximate that
nationwide, fraternity and sorority residents drink more than three
times as much as other students, averaging 15 drinks per week
versus the five consumed weekly by non-Greeks.
CASA predicts that students who enter college never having drunk
alcohol are also three times as likely to begin drinking in college
if they opt to "go Greek." Sigma Pi resident Jaime Parady has
defied the odds.
To CASA officials, Parady would appear to be an oxymoron Â
a fraternity brother whose alcohol use does not extend beyond the
wine received at communion. As a student health advocate at his
fraternity, Parady, along with his fellow SHAs, attempts in part to
"dispel the myths of drinking by giving facts that might clear up
confusion."
The "confusion" he refers to appears to be a commonplace
phenomenon for college students everywhere, Greek and non-Greek, as
substantiated by national and UCLA-based studies.
According to Pam Viely, director of the health education unit of
Student Health Services, students become victims of a phenomenon
that studies deem "pluralistic ignorance." This theory asserts that
the majority of college students tend to hold "very low-risk
attitudes to drugs (including alcohol) but mistakenly believe that
other students don’t as strongly hold those same opinions, that
they are more permissive in attitudes toward abuse."
Consequently, Viely alleges, students tend to repress their
misgivings in order to maintain face; they adjust their alcohol
consumption in order to replicate their inaccurate perceptions of
others’ use.
A student’s "need to keep up appearances" is verified by Hilda
Fernandez, a UCLA peer health counselor.
"You don’t want to be the one left out," said Fernandez, a
fifth-year neuroscience and psychology student. "You feel you must
keep up with someone else, since you have this false sense that
everyone has had more than you."
Drinking can then become a competition of sorts, particularly
for the male fraction of the student population, claims Viely.
"To be a man, you’ve got to be a successful competitor," said
Viely of a line of reasoning fairly familiar to college men.
Drinking games, such as those notorious to fraternity parties, then
become "the object to prove ‘what a man I am, because I can beat
you. I can get drunker than you. I can down three six-packs,’"
Viely continued.
Parady agrees with Viely, noting that fraternity brothers tend
to hold an attitude of "I can drink more than you and not pass
out." She adds, "It’s a macho thing."
The practice of binge drinking is not limited strictly to the
fraternity houses, however.
Marielle Francisco, a Rieber Hall SHA, alleges that the nature
of the dorms is conducive to both alcohol connections and the
presence of peer pressure. Consequently, she figures that a greater
amount of drinking is able to occur in on-campus housing than in
off-campus apartments.
"It’s as if girls and guys are like, ‘You have to drink
(because) you’re not doing anything tonight,’" noted Francisco, a
second-year undeclared student, as a possible motivation for
student drinking.
A fellow SHA, in contrast, said that peer pressure to drink is
not an issue within his fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi.
"I don’t really see peer pressure. Everyone respects each
other," said Pat Gibbons, a third-year pre-med history student.
"It’s not like people stand around and force each other to drink
and it’s not like it’s a prerequisite to drink to join a
fraternity."
Parady has also seen a general level of support from his
fraternity brothers in his resolve to abstain from alcohol. "I do
get teased, but typically people respect that I’m not falling to
pressures."
The only peer pressure Parady does recognize within the Sigma Pi
fraternity is in the brothers’ discouragement of marijuana use.
While alumni let underage drinking "slide," they are ardently
opposed to illicit drugs, according to Parady. If alumni members
were to discover marijuana use within the house, "they’d pull our
charter. It (marijuana use) does happen, but it’s very
hush-hush."
Given that use of marijuana is so shrouded in secrecy, it is of
no great surprise that 80 percent of students polled in UCLA’s 1995
Student Health Survey reported no use within the prior six months.
Also unsurprising is that more than 90 percent of students reported
that they have not experimented with harder drugs, such as
hallucinogens and amphetamines, within the previous six months.
Working with students since 1983, Kennedy has seen a number of
students who he feels suffer from "amotivational syndrome."
Frequent smokers of marijuana  four or more times per week
 tend to sacrifice their initially high personal or academic
expectations after chronic use of the drug, he notes. These
students typically fall prey to "complacency," asserts Kennedy, as
they grow "more tolerant of failure" by merely getting by in
school.
According to Kennedy, however, a large proportion of the UCLA
students that he must evaluate at Student Psychological Services,
rather than being pot addicts, are simply referrals for dorm
residents "who seem to be convinced they can be in a residence hall
and light up a joint without a towel at the door."
Sgt. James Vandenberg of the university police also notes the
not-uncommon scenario of a student being forced to squeal on a
roommate who insists on utilizing the dorm room as a greenhouse for
his marijuana plants.
According to Vandenburg, the budding botanists’ typical
mentality is, "I’m going to have my marijuana plant and I’m going
to smoke my marijuana cigarette, so I don’t care what you say."
Viely, nevertheless, maintains that such minor experimentation
with drugs, including marijuana, is not unhealthy. "It’s normal.
It’s part of normal, healthy growing up and it’s wrong to define
(it) as deviant."
Photo Illustration by GENEVIEVE LIANG/Daily Bruin
According to a 1995 Student Health Services survey, alcohol and
marijuana are more prevalent on the UCLA campus than any other
drug.
"I don’t really see peer pressure. Everyone respects each
other."
Pat Gibbons
Phi Kappa Psi SHA