In the spring of 1999, a nationally representative sample of students (N= 11,303, 61% women) attending U.S. colleges completed questionnaires regarding alcohol use and related behaviour. Responses from 2,252 students at 19 ban schools were compared with those of 9,051 students at 76 non-ban schools.

Compared with non-ban schools students attending ban schools were 30% less likely to be heavy episodic drinkers and more likely to abstain from alcohol. The lower rates of heavy episodic drinking apply to students whether or not they were heavy episodic drinkers in high school or not. Among drinkers, however, students at ban schools engaged in as much extreme drinking as drinkers at schools that do not ban alcohol and experienced the same rate of alcohol related problems This suggests that the students continue to drink elsewhere. Fewer students experienced second-hand effects of the drinking of others at the schools that banned alcohol than did students at non-ban schools.

A campus ban on alcohol may support abstention from alcohol use at the College itself and reduce heavy episodic drinking and the associated second hand effects in College. As it was a correlational study it can not be determined whether the lower rates of heavy episodic drinking were due to the ban or to other factors (e.g., self selection of students to those schools).

Source.Wechler H, Lee JE Gledhill-Hoyt et al. Alcohol use and problems at colleges banning alcohol:results of a national survey. Dept Hlth and Soc Behav, Harvard Sch Pub Hlth, Boston , MA 02115, J Stud Alcohol 2001;62:133-41