Last Call.

T his past fall, I walked to my campus office filled with excitement and anticipation. September is, after all, the time of the year when college towns become alive again as the students return from their summer vacation and a new term approaches. Sadly, my professorial reverie ended abruptly upon crossing “Fraternity Row,” where I was forced to run the gauntlet of hundreds of fraternity and sorority kids bombed out of their skulls on alcohol, clogging the streets and sidewalks in a drunken and often-belligerent stupor. In Ann Arbor, as on many college campuses across the nation, the week before classes start has now become “Drinking Week.” If only this dangerous practice ended there. Unfortunately, many of my students admit to frequent episodes of drinking in a high-risk manner throughout the academic year. And as finals week approaches and ends this December, I have no doubt the partying will only escalate. What makes this scene so dangerous is that today’s kids drink far differently than their parents did, many who may have fond memories of college keggers and dorm room parties. Forty percent of all college students now “binge drink,” a practice defined as consuming 5 or more drinks in a row. Make no mistake, the goal of these bacchanalian exercises is not to feel buzzed; it is to get flat-out drunk and even black out.1,2 A little less than 5 months ago, in late July, at around 2 o’clock in the morning, a 21-year-old University of Michigan college junior met a young woman at a local bar. He had likely consumed more than 8 drinks over a relatively short time span, and she had had 2 glasses of champagne before going to the bar. Eventually they decided to go to his apartment. At some point on this journey, the couple decided to shimmy up the fire escape of an arcade building and walk across its glass rooftop. On the way back, one of the panes of glass gave way and the young man fell 3 stories to his death. Long before the results of the young man’s toxicology screen were announced, I would have bet my bottom dollar that alcohol (or some other