It is quite fitting that National Collegiate Alcohol Awareness Week falls before a traditionally stressful time in Carbondale. In fact it may act as a last-minute plead for sobriety before Halloween. Considering this, it would be hypocritical for SIUC students to participate in this week’s non-alcoholic events, then use next week as an excuse for alcohol to dictate their actions.

The 11th annual National Collegiate Alcohol Awareness Week, Monday through Friday, has spawned a number of events on and off-campus for the SIUC community. But the question is:Are students going to take these events as seriously as they should? If a look at years past is indicative of anything, then that answer would be a loud and resounding no.

Last year’s drunken student rioters on the Strip ruined any chance that Carbondale had for successful Halloween celebrations in the near future. And according to Barb Fijolek, alcohol and drug coordinator at the Wellness Center, SIUC students as a whole have been abusing alcohol for quite a long time.

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Fijolek recently cited alarming statistics from SIUC’s 1993 Core Drug and Alcohol Survey. The study showed alcohol abuse is a factor in 28 percent of SIUC’s drop-out cases. Alcohol also is a factor in 40 percent of students’ academic problems. Forty-one percent of SIUC students reported binge drinking at least once in a two-week period.

Compare these grim statistics to the study conducted by the National Clearinghouse of Alcohol and Drug Information between 240,000 and 360,000 college students will eventually die of alcohol-related causes sometime during their college years. Will SIUC students make a sizable contribution to those numbers?

That all depends on how seriously students will take the campus efforts behind National Collegiate Alcohol Awareness Week. Numerous campus and administrative organizations have organized ways for students to acknowledge the negative aspects of alcohol. SIUC Chancellor Don Beggs even stopped by Lentz Hall Monday to chat about the effects of alcohol with students.

Everyone is reaching out to warn us about alcohol especially after the recent binge-drinking deaths of college students at Louisiana State University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that have been reported in the media. Perhaps we should heed their warnings. The very least we could do is be responsible enough to know when to slow down alcohol consumption. That way students could help prevent the undesirable actions usually associated with excessive drinking such as hangovers, drinking and driving incidents or unwanted sexual advances.

But if students hear various speakers and consume Mocktails without listening to the real and positive message of National Collegiate Alcohol Awareness Week, then next week will not turn out to be a holiday for anyone.