By Barry Levites

Walk into a party at any given college and there’s a good possibility partygoers will be playing drinking games. Whether it’s Beirut, Kings, “Asshole” or “Numbers,” drinking games have long been a staple at many college parties.

The increase in reports of drinking games has led universities around the country, including Bucknell University, Kenyon College, Tufts University and Yale University, to launch efforts to ban drinking games because those schools’ administrations feel drinking games promote binge drinking.

Chet Bowen, Northeastern’s alcohol and drug education coordinator, said although Northeastern has no plans to ban drinking games, he hopes to educate students about the dangers of binge drinking.

“Binge drinking is binge drinking,” Bowen said, “whether it’s on a Beirut table or if it’s downing a few beers in an hour.”

Games such as “Kings,” a card game in which players do specific acts linked to a card; “Asshole,” which is similar to Uno with drinking rules; and “Numbers,” which is a counting game with drinking rules applied; are also popular games on college campuses.

Bowen said his current plan is deterrence and education rather than the crackdown that rocked the school earlier this semester, in which over 100 gallons of alcohol were confiscated by Northeastern police.

The Office of Student Conduct and Conflict Resolution (OSCCR) reports show that out of 1,886 students referred to the office in 2004, approximately 1,350 were alcohol-related, and about 700 of those students were found guilty of a Level-2, or “serious offense,” according to the Code of Student Conduct.

Many college administrators fear binge drinking will lead to other risks, including deaths and sexual misconduct. According to an Indiana State University study conducted by psychologist Thomas J. Johnson, 44 percent of male drinking game participants reported they play drinking games to take advantage of their opponents sexually. Twenty percent reported they had done things after playing drinking games that could be classified as sexual assault.

Some students, however, including Joel Rudzinski, a sophomore theatre major, said they don’t feel students drink with the intention to take advantage of others.

“Most students don’t drink with malice,” Rudzinski said. “They just drink so they don’t have to be sober.”

Others said they believe the main point of drinking is to loosen inhibitions.

“Don’t people start drinking so that they can take advantage of others?” asked Peter Jordan, a senior computer science major. “It seems like a moot point to me.”

Although students are often reminded of the dangers of binge drinking, some, like Jonah Blumenfeld, a middler finance major, said drinking games help spice up the party life at Northeastern.

“I play ‘Numbers’ because just drinking is boring,” Blumenfeld said. “You need to give drinking a purpose.”