Drug use, whether alcohol, marijuana or prescription drug abuse, takes place on about every college campus. While you have most likely heard over and over about how the use of varying substances, and especially their misuse, is seen as a problem among young adults and college students, you might not know how big of a factor these drugs are in the lives of the young adults, and especially your peers at UGA. Now let's get educated! Here are some fact and stats about substance use and abuse in general, and also particularly at the University of Georgia.
Based on results from the 2013 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, the rate of illicit drug use among full-time college students ages 18 to 22 in 2013 was 22.3 percent. Illicit drug use refers to non-medical use of a variety of drugs that are prohibited by the law including marijuana, cocaine, heroine, etc. In regards to alcohol, the same study reports that full-time college students from ages 18 to 22 are more likely to engage in current (59.4 percent), binge (39 percent) or heavy drinking (12.7 percent) than part-time college students or those not enrolled in school at all. A couple of other stats from addicitoncenter.com state that approximately 31 percent of U.S. college students report symptoms of alcohol abuse, and approximately 70 percent of U.S. college students report drinking on a regular basis.
As for UGA, this chart and other information can be found on the UGA Health Center website. The site states that according to a Core Alcohol and Other Drug Survey conducted in 2005, 74.4 percent of UGA students under 21 consumed alcohol, tobacco, or other drugs within the last 30 days.
Although this chart only shows numbers up to the year 2004, they are pretty comparable to the percents reported in the 2013 National Survey on Drug Use and Health and from the Addiction Center, cited above. For example, in 2004 68.1 percent on incoming students reported to using alcohol, and the Addiction Center reported that 70 percent of college students drink alcohol regularly.
While it is difficult to compare drug use across many different college campuses, colleges.niche.com (what used to be known as collegeprowler.com) is a website where students review and grade their college on various topics. On drug safety, UGA received a D+. Other colleges such as University of Alabama received a D+, Georgia Tech received at C, Auburn University was graded a C, and University of North Carolina received a C-. While these grade are given by students and are not from an official study, they provide an idea that drug use is prevalent on many campuses and in the minds of the students. One thing is constant among all of these schools, and that is none of them were graded very highly.
Whether you were surprised by these statistics in that they seemed too high or too low, or you found them to be predictable and accurate, these are important facts because they are a part of every college student's life.
