EDITORIAL
College drinking must be taken seriously

In separate incidents late last year, students at the University of Oklahoma, the University of Arkansas and Colorado State University died of alcohol poisoning.

In the Colorado State case, 18-year-old Lynn "Gordie" Bailey Jr. consumed a 10-bottle mixture of whiskey and cheap wine in less than 30 minutes as part of a fraternity initiation rite.

Although the University of Hawai'i campuses hardly rank among the nation's top party schools, a recent series of weekend tours through the UH-Manoa dorms turned up several combative, drunken students.

And there are other warning signs:

Several students with alcohol-related sickness were admitted to a hospital emergency room at the beginning of the fall 2004 semester, according to campus security reports.

Also, liquor violations at the UH-Manoa dorms increased 50 percent from 2002 to 2003.

Clearly, a crackdown of underage dorm drinking is needed before things get worse, as they have at the college campuses mentioned above.

UH administrators are moving to better enforce rules against underage drinking by tightening security around the dorms.

They're also considering asking dorm residents to waive their rights to privacy, so the university can contact their parents if they break such house rules as underage drinking. Federal privacy law ensures that a university cannot contact parents, even if the student ends up in the hospital.

Asking students to give up that privacy won't be easy, but given the potential health risks, we support the intent.

The way many students tell it, drinking binges are a rite of passage in the early college years. That's how they learn what their limits are, or at least that's their rationale.

But universities have good reason to be concerned. Excessive drinking on college campuses across the nation has been tied to car accidents, and some cases of date rape and sexual assault. About 1,400 young people a year die in alcohol-related incidents, according to the Harvard School of Public Health.

It's time to put a spotlight on underage drinking, before it's too late.