Thirty percent of Brandeis students do not drink, according to a survey conducted in February by the Alcohol and Drug Coalition, Residence Life and the Office of Institutional Research. All Community Advisers received the survey and were instructed to distribute it to their residents; Brandeis' 2,700 on-campus residents should have received the survey. However, only 613 students (23 percent) responded. The majority of them were first-year students, though this was not deliberate, according to Alcohol and Drug Counselor and Educator Dawn Skop.

Aside from the 30 percent who abstain from alcohol completely, another 30 percent of students, according to the survey, said they drink once or twice a week and 40 percent said they drink once or twice a month. The survey found that only eight percent of students said they drink more than twice a week.

On average, students who do drink said they consume between two and five drinks on a given night.

"I was not surprised with the results," Skop said. "I personally think that most students at Brandeis drink responsibly. There are small pockets of students abusing heavy drugs."

Marijuana was the most common drug on campus, though two-thirds of respondents reported no marijuana use in the past year. Less than two percent of the sample said they had used other illicit drugs this past year, including prescription drugs, hallucinogens, opiates, stimulants, inhalants and designer drugs like Ecstasy.

Students also responded to questions about the consequences of such habits, rating how often in the past year they had experienced certain events due specifically to drug or alcohol use.

Here, 93 percent of students reported that they do not drive intoxicated, 92 percent said that they have not performed poorly on a test due to drinking or drugs, 94 percent said they have not "been involved in forced sexual situations," and 96 percent said they have not "tried unsuccessfully to stop using."

This is the first year such a survey was conducted, though Skop said she hopes to continue it in the future. An annual Cooperative Institutional Research Program Freshman Survey already exist and since 1987, it has shown that Brandeis first-year students drink less than their peers at other selective private universities.

Skop and the department of Institutional Research designed the current survey based loosely on a statewide test in New Hampshire. The goal was to gauge the general drug and alcohol atmosphere on campus.

"We are not using this [survey] as a reason to change judicial laws," Skop said. "Personally, I'm new here, and I want to target things that are an issue."

To get a broad sense of the results, Skop browsed through the pages of data and "looked for things that popped out." Currently, only certain statistics are available. Staffers at Institutional Research said they will continue to analyze results during the summer.

Skop said that most of the students who visit her office are first-year students.

"freshmen who come in and have never drank before end up overdrinking... people not knowing appropriate or safe blood alcohol levels or how to pace themselves"

When upperclassmen do seek her help, she said, it is often those "who have gotten more off track...fallen into more of a party crowd." She mentioned the practice of doing "21 shots on your 21st birthday," which can be lethal, she said.

Using the survey results, Skop said, she will be better able to plan education and prevention programs. She said she hopes eventually to make comparisons with usage and perceptions at other schools.

"I actually thought [the results] were quite in line with what students report anecdotally and in dorm raps," Skop said. She noted, though, that the first-year dominance among respondents might have affected results, as could have the absence of off-campus students' input.

Senator for East Quad Joanna Roberts '06 said the results seemed fairly accurate for on-campus use, though she guessed that off-campus results "would be higher for everything." Consistent with the survey, Roberts said she believes that most Brandeis students do not binge drink, but rather drink socially.

But some students said that the results seemed slightly lower than they would have imagined based on their observations.

Sarah Simpson '05 reported that far fewer than 30 percent of her friends are non-drinkers.

"I don't think any abstain completely," she said. "On my freshman hall, only two people didn't drink, out of 22 girls."

As far as marijuana, Simpson estimated that closer to half of students use the drug, rather than the one-third indicated by the survey.

Mat Goldblatt '07 gave the same guess. He said that half the students on his all-male hall regularly smoke marijuana.

"I think people smoke on this campus more often than they drink" Class of 2006 Senator Robyn Kaplan '06 said.

For hard drugs, Simpson said, "I would say more than two percent-more like ten percent, based on the people I know."

Goldblatt, too, said that illicit drug use is probably higher than the survey showed. "I know plenty of people who have done shrooms or popped pills," he said.

According to Simpson, drug use among her friends has "definitely increased" since their first year here.

Simpson and others said that therefore, a survey completed mainly by first-years may not indicate drug use in the school as a whole.

However, Goldblatt, a first-year himself, said he thinks "freshmen are more abusive of everything."

"People are constantly wanting to keep freshmen away from certain parties because they don't want to clean up after them," he added.

He pointed out that those who neglected to fill out the survey could be those who drink and smoke the most. At the same time, he added, the opposite could also be true. He said that ideally, all students would answer the poll.

He mentioned that he never received the survey. In fact, nearly all the students interviewed also did not receive a copy. They said they were uncertain if this was their fault or their CAs' mistake.

"I don't know that there's a problem [with drugs] in the student body as a whole, but there is a certain section that has problems. On the whole, we're not really a party school," Simpson said.

Survey results were consistent with this description. Eighty-five percent of students said they consider Brandeis a party school "minimally" to "not at all."

"I think it's because of the type of people this school attracts," Simpson said. "It's not unheard of for people to stay in at least one of the two weekend nights. At other schools, if you're not out three nights a week, it's like, 'Why aren't you partying?'