Alcohol Awareness Month is observed each April. But if one were to read the Jan. 26, 2000 issue of The Orion — published 26 years ago to this day — one would have thought it is annually observed in January.
Alcohol-related stories dominated the 32 pages of the newspaper, with eight articles, four drunkenness-related reports in the weekly Police Blotter and multiple infographics on the topic.
Stories ranged from a Q&A with Chico State President Manuel Esteban about alcohol abuse on campus to interviews with doctors and nurses at a local hospital on the harmful effects of alcohol they see in the course of their work.
The staff at the Enloe Medical Center Emergency Room said at least one student was admitted each week with alcohol poisoning, according to the article.
“The ones that die are the ones that don’t recognize how drunk they are,” said John Marquardt, a nurse and clinical educator. “Dying in your own vomit is one scenario. Alcohol is toxic.”
Hospital staffers were also heavily impacted by alcohol-related deaths, which they saw “once every two or three months.”
“We number our victims when they come in. That’s our safety zone, it buffers us,” Marquardt said. “Then we read the obituaries and they become real to us.”
Other stories in the turn-of-the-century issue included the world-renowned San Francisco Symphony coming to perform at Chico State and various columnists sharing their thoughts on the new millennium.
“I feel oddly cheated,” wrote Amaris Summer Hayden, an Orion columnist. “After a year of hype and anxiety, the millennium left without a bang, boom, or even a fizzle — not one glitch… Y2K was the biggest flop since Chia pets. Not that I desired Armageddon, but after all that work and worry, I thought the lights should have flickered or something.”
Another issue of The Orion — published 21 years ago to this day — also had its fair share of alcohol-related coverage, with four stories and another four drunkenness-related reports in the weekly Police Blotter.
The front-page story in the 36-page issue from 2005 reported on a Butte College student who nearly died after drinking hard alcohol at a non-fraternity-supported initiation-week activity. The 19-year-old’s blood alcohol content was 0.496%.
“He wanted to join (Sigma Chi) because they don’t put up with hazing,” the student’s mother, Valerie Amador, told The Orion, adding that he wasn’t hazed by most members. Sigma Chi was suspended from the university “until the investigation uncovers what happened.”
“He has met some wonderful guys. He loves everyone there,” she continued. “But something has to change.”
Also featured on the front page was a news article about then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s budget proposal that would increase student fees by 8%, as “an agreement between the governor and the California State University system was to increase fees to admit more students.”
Archives of The Wildcat and The Orion can be found online and in the Meriam Library on campus.
