Study: Prescription drugs a problem on campus

A recent story described how school administrators intervened to stop prescription drugs from home from being sold in a local middle school. Now comes a study reported by CNN.com and USA Today that finds problems on college campuses.

The study finds:

• About half of U.S. college students binge drink or abuse drugs, study finds
• Proportion of students who abuse prescription painkillers is up sharply
• "What's troubling" is tremendous increase in intensity of drinking, drug use

The study, issued by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University in New York, provides a detailed look at substance abuse among America's college students based on surveys, interviews and other research.

"I think we have, by almost any standard, a serious public health problem on the college campuses. And it's deteriorating," Joseph Califano, who heads the center and served as U.S. health secretary from 1977 to 1979, said in a telephone interview.

The report found that 49 percent of full-time college students ages 18 to 22 binge drink (consuming five or more drinks at a time), or abuse prescription drugs such as painkillers or illegal drugs like cocaine and marijuana. That translates to 3.8 million students.

In 2005, 23 percent of them met the medical criteria for substance abuse or dependence, it said.