College-age drinking deaths up

• By JORDAN BLUM
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Jul 8, 2008 - Page: 1A - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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An LSU employee’s spouse recently complained to an off-campus business about an advertised sale of Ping-Pong balls.

The anger was not about a simple game. Rather it had to do with the business promoting students playing beer pong — a drinking game related to table tennis — said K.C. White, LSU dean of students.

Binge drinking and heavy alcohol use from games such as beer pong have led at least 157 college-age people to drink themselves to death from 1999 through 2005, according to a new Associated Press analysis released Monday. The number of alcohol-poisoning deaths rose from 18 in 1999 to 35 in 2005.

These statistics do not factor in deaths from alcohol-related traffic accidents.

In December, for example, a student at Winona State University in Minnesota died after a night of beer pong.

“Things like beer pong have taken a fun, competitive game and twisted it around,” White said Monday. “If they weren’t playing, obviously they’d be drinking less. … Unfortunately, too many students are consuming too much alcohol.”

Since 1997, LSU has suffered from two high-profile student alcohol-poisoning deaths.

In 1997, Benjamin Wynne of Covington, a Sigma Alpha Epsilon pledge, died after drinking more than 20 alcoholic beverages. The night included a private party and more drinking at the now-defunct Murphy’s bar near campus.

In 2003, LSU student Corey Domingue, of Franklin, drank himself to death in his Bob Pettit Drive apartment just off campus with alcohol he bought with a fake ID.

While excessive drinking remains a major problem at college campuses in Louisiana and nationwide, alcohol education and awareness have improved at LSU in recent years, LSU officials said.

“Drinking is part of the college culture today,” interim LSU Chancellor William Jenkins said. “How can one argue with it?

“But I think we’ve made progress,” Jenkins said. “We’ve made efforts to curb binge drinking — that’s the dangerous game.”

In 2004, a Harvard University study recognized LSU’s Campus-Community Coalition for Change for helping to reduce high-risk drinking. The coalition was started after Wynne’s death.