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Columbia University's National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse's four-year "Wasting the Best and Brightest" study says 49% of U.S. college students binge drink or abuse drugs, both prescription and illegal. And more than 22% of students meet drug/alcohol addiction criteria - almost three times the national average among all ages, the study found.

The biggest popularity increase is among prescription painkillers OxyContin, Vicodin and Percocet and tranquilizers Xanax and Valium. Student abuse of these drugs increased three to four times from 1993 to 2005, the study found. During that time, the number of students reporting daily marijuana use doubled to 310,000. And while the number of binge-drinking students hasn't changed, it's happening 16% more of the time.

Joseph Califano, the center's chairman and president, called on universities to identify high-risk students and limit alcohol exposure on and near campus. He added that parents should "look at themselves in the mirror." "Three-fourths of the kids who drink and use drugs in college were doing so in high school or middle school," he said yesterday.

Rutgers University substance abuse program director Lisa Laitman, who founded the nation's first on-campus addiction recovery home in 1988, says most student users buy pills on the street. "We have to get the message across that they don't know what they're taking," she said. "We've got kids who see themselves as pharmacists."

Students say universities turn a blind eye to drug use. "At one of my friend's schools, they all smoke [pot] on the lawn in the middle of the day - they know the administration won't do anything about it," said Juliane Corman, 19, a Columbia sophomore. And at Columbia, "I know people who'll smoke pot before going to class," she added.

Labels: College, Marijuana, OxyContin, Percocet, Valium, Vicodin, Xanax