If alcohol were eliminated at ASU, there would be no need for a campus police department, a police official said Tuesday.
Cmdr. James Hardina of the ASU Police Department was one of three speakers who spoke about underage drinking at a national highway-safety conference in Scottsdale.
“Statistics show that 8 out of 10 cases of assault reported on campus included the female being blacked out,” Hardina said.
Most of those reported incidents involved students under the age of 21, he said.
Hardina said all the assaults reported on campus since he became commander have been alcohol-related.
The underage-drinking workshop was hosted by the Governors Highway Safety Association to educate professionals about the latest statistics regarding consequences of underage drinking in light of recent moves to have the legal drinking age lowered.
Another speaker, Mothers Against Drunk Driving chief executive Chuck Hurley, said 47 percent of people who start drinking at an early age suffer from a dependence on alcohol before the age of 21.
“Alcohol-related accidents are the leading cause of death among people between the ages of 1 and 44 in the United States,” Hurley said.
Associations like MADD that are involved in the effort to reduce underage drinking are researching historical data on accident and fatality rates from different drinking-age eras, Hurley said.
Robert Thompson, program evaluator for the Iowa Governor’s Traffic Safety Bureau, said statistics show that about 24,000 lives have been saved since many states, such as Arizona, raised the legal drinking age back to 21.
“Data dating back to 1972 proves that reducing the legal drinking age to 18 was a major disaster and [caused] a great number of fatalities,” he said.
Hurley said college presidents across the country are being encouraged to join in the effort by enforcing the law and adding tougher consequences to the students involved in underage drinking.
ASU President Michael Crow is one of the 120 college presidents who agreed to make changes, Hurley said.
ASU has been enforcing the drinking age by involving the dean of students and having students answer to the University instead of just paying fines, he said.
Not only is it important to reduce the underage drinking at colleges and universities, but it is also important to educate the public and get to the root of the problem, Hurley added.
Reach the reporter at lilibeth.montijo@asu.edu.
