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Posts Tagged ‘alcohol poisoning’

Alcohol education crucial for college students

Source: The Daily Illini
November 1, 2012

In two separate instances in the past week, students from Rice University and Washington State University have been subject to alcohol poisoning. Currently the Texas Alcohol and Beverage Commission are investigating an annual party on the Rice University campus in which 11 students ended up in the hospital due to alcohol poisoning.

In another incident, a Washington State University freshman who was subject to alcohol poisoning was found dead in his dorm room last weekend.

The majority of these students were underage.

For a while, there has been much controversy over the legal drinking age: Some feel that it should be lowered from 21 to 18.

The reality for many young adults, especially those on college campuses, is that the consumption of alcohol and introduction to drinking culture is all too familiar long before they reach the age of 21. Many are introduced to drinking as early as middle school. And while the age limit is set to prevent incidents like those that took place at WSU and Rice, the current law is clearly not effective.

On this campus in particular, events and holidays such as Homecoming, Halloween and Unofficial – which is not supported or condoned by the university – inevitably encourages students to participate in a drinking culture. While participation in drinking is heightened during these times, let us remember that the opportunity is always knocking on the doors of students. After all, a person only has to be 19 to enter the local bars in Campustown.

Many similar scenarios play out on college campuses around the country, and they even affect many middle schools and high schools. It seems as if the legal drinking age is not hindering or suppressing the issue of underage drinking. In fact, many of our problems might be reduced if the age was lowered to 18.

This is an infamous case of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”

Although the age is set to help control the negative effects of underage drinking, it just seems to have no benefit. And while it is thought someone who is 21 will drink more responsibly, this is also seemingly untrue.

In the most recent fact sheet on annual college drinking consequences from collegedrinkingprevention.gov, it was noted that over 3 million college students between the ages of 18 and 24 drive under the influence of alcohol, and nearly 600,000 are unintentionally injured while intoxicated. The report also mentioned that nearly 2,000 students die from alcohol-related incidents.

The buck did not stop there.

To think that drinking related problems are stifled by the drinking limit of 21 is not true, just like it’s not necessarily true to think that drinking is uncommon amongst those as young as 12. The 2011 National Survey on Drug Use and Health reported that of youth between the ages of 12 to 20, nearly 25 percent drink alcohol. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that excessive alcohol consumption results in more than 4,700 deaths of underage drinkers each year.

A high legal drinking age is not suppressing the issue of underage drinking, but encouraging this behavior. People tend to desire what is considered taboo and if the drinking age is lowered to 18, many young adults will not have to sneak to drink, thus preventing obnoxious consumption. The excitement and thrill of breaking the rules causes some to go overboard, which results in incidents like those at Rice and WSU.

What many fail to realize is that the age of these young students is not what causes these problems, but the lack of insufficient knowledge and improper handling of alcohol. While many argue that lowering the drinking age will cause more damage and alcohol related incidents, age is not a real deterrent to drinking.

In fact, lawmakers and parents – the latter being the most important – should strive to put more emphasis on alcohol education and properly teaching youth not only about the dangers and consequences of drinking, but how to do so safely and responsibly. While parents and lawmakers would probably prefer that young people not drink at all, it is not realistic. Instead of beating them over the head with consequences, proper education about safe alcohol use will allow drinkers to practice safe consumption when they do decide to drink.

Because let’s face it, people are going to continue to drink whether they are over 21 or 12.

In the end, it is neither age nor law which makes a person responsible, but it is instead up to the individual themselves

Learn more about reducing risky drinking behaviors at servingalcohol.com

Largely unrecognized problem raises risks of violence, car crashes and chronic disease

Read full story at USA Today

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Source: Daily Mail

Date: September 29, 2010

A drinker who had taken the dance drug mephedrone died after downing a pint of vodka in four seconds, an inquest heard. Richard Davies swallowed the spirits in one go, despite attempts to stop him. The 29-year-old had been drinking with friends before the alcohol – the equivalent of 13 pints of lager – knocked him into a stupor. He was found unconscious and not breathing in a pool of his own blood, and died hours later.

Teesside Coroner’s Court heard how the electrician’s mate, of Thornaby, near Stockton-on-Tees, was five-and-a-half times the legal drink-drive limit. His body also contained traces of the then-legal high mephedrone, which has since been banned. Mr Davies’ best friend Christopher Crooks told the inquest yesterday how he desperately tried to save his life after he was found unconscious. In a statement read out by deputy Teesside coroner Tony Eastwood, he said: ‘Richard drank a pint of vodka in four seconds or so. ‘I did try to take the glass off him, but he turned his back on me, pushed me away, and drank it all.’ Mr Crooks had taken Mr Davies to his stepfather John Brocklesby’s home, in Cobden Street, to sleep off the alcohol.

He made desperate attempts to save his friend when he stopped breathing but by the time paramedics had arrived Mr Davies was dead. Pathologist Jan Lowe said Mr Davies had an alcohol level of 458mg in 100ml of blood, enough to have caused acute alcohol poisoning.

Recording a verdict of misadventure, Mr Eastwood said the alcohol in his system had killed him and that the mephedrone was not a contributing factor.

Learn how to safely intervene and the effects of alcohol.

Source: Record Searchlight

By: Scott Mobley

Date: September 29, 2010

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed legislation championed by a Redding family whose daughter died from alcohol poisoning.

Assembly Bill 1999 would grant limited immunity from prosecution to underage drinkers seeking medical help for themselves or their peers.

Anthony Portantino (D-La Cañada/Flintridge) introduced the bill in February, noting several underage drinkers have recently died of alcohol poisoning. They might have survived had their friends not been afraid to call an ambulance, he said.

Debbie Allen, whose 17-year-old daughter Shelby Lyn Allen died of alcohol poisoning just before Christmas 2008, has supported and publicized the bill.

“Not everyone will need this,” Allen said. “But some underage drinkers are afraid to get help because they don’t want to get into trouble, and this takes the trouble out of the picture. Whatever it takes to save a life.”

An underage drinker who calls 911 to report possible alcohol poisoning and cooperates with paramedics and law enforcement once they arrive will be immune from prosecution, under the law. Underage drinking is otherwise a misdemeanor.

AB 1999 is a companion to another bill Schwarzenegger signed in August that eliminates immunity for adults who knowingly supply alcohol to minors.

Allen and her husband, Steve, had also sought the “social host” law, written by Los Angeles Democrat Mike Feuer.

Shelby Allen, a popular Foothill High School junior, was found dead on a bathroom floor at the home of Wallace and Debby Liberman east of Redding.

Shelby Allen died after a bout of intense drinking with the Libermans’ now 18-year-old daughter and another teen. The rest of the Liberman family slept upstairs while the teens drank, sheriff’s deputies said.

Shasta County prosecutors had charged the Liberman teen with involuntary manslaughter in Allen’s death, but a juvenile court judge dismissed the case in November.

The Record Searchlight has not identified the teen because she was a minor when her friend died.

Shelby Allen became ill after drinking 15 shots of vodka in about an hour, according to a court document.

Allen’s two friends took her into the bathroom where she vomited into the toilet. Allen eventually passed out on her knees with her head resting on the toilet seat.

The girls put a towel under her so she could lie on it, the document said.

The Liberman teen stayed with Allen until she believed her friend was fine and checked on her two times before morning. Allen had not moved, according to the court document.

The third girl, who had also become ill, checked Allen later in the morning and thought she wasn’t breathing, according to the court document.

An older sister of the Liberman teen alerted her father, who called 911 and began CPR.

Learn how to how to prevent underage drinking in an alcohol establishment.