Surely I can't be the only one to notice the two headlines on today's page? Cambridge students vomiting all over the place and the US testing a vomit ray? Given the presens of large US air bases nearby, then there must be a sinister plot to test the vomit ray on cambridge students. After all, Cambridge students are hard-working conscientious types who'd surely never get totally rat-arsed!

I write as another former student!

I blame British society at large for such deplorable drinking habits. Well I'm sure their parents are much to blame I see this sort of thing becoming more and more prevalent.

When I was a boy by the age of 15 we could hold our liquor. At fourteen Alan Partridge and I nicked a bottle of Creme de Menth from his father's liquor cabinet and downed the bottle in no time. Trying to steer Alan home through the park he began to puke, hurling foul green torrents. I held out till he hit my shoes then joined in. It was well after dark and past our respective curfews before either of us made it home, sick, dizzy and smelly. That's the sort of foundation necessary to accomplished substance abuse and it doesn't do to wait until first year uni to lay that foundation.

By the end of my first year of junior high I could drink myself senseless and hold my liquor until the next morning when I knelt before the porcelain altar puking my guts out in stealth mode, avoiding parental curiosity.

As a Canadian it worries me that we can't look to Britain to instill substance abuse in it's youth at a young enough age to ensure the future ruling elite will be able to drink themselves senseless when faced with life's problems. This just won't do.

After going through this article, I can't help but think of any other school in the world. There is always going to be the young, freshmen starting their first year away from home. There is definitely (not 'probably' or 'most likely') going to be some binge-drinking.

The point that I don't get is looking at Cardiff's paper, there is a little blurb about how Cambridge's student's are such horrible, common senseless 'drunken brats' (as put by the IBN paper). Look above that blurb and you will see a half-page full pictured article about Cardiff's Beer Festival with barrels upon barrels of beer in the photo and how successful it was.

Do you think they had this to entice the Cambridge students and then have the Cardiff's journalists sneak around the Cambridge campus to find anything about having drunk students? If I was the Cardiff's editor, I would have paid a little more attention to this.

I'm a recent graduate of <A large American college>. And I think anyone who gets stinking drunk should be kicked out, no ifs, ands, buts, or second chances.

College students used to be seen as hard-working, determined individuals. And 90% of them, in my experience, are. But the 10% who throw loud parties, form drunk mobs in the street (and bus, and subway), and commit acts of drunken vandalism ruin it for the rest of us. As a junior I had difficulty renting an apartment off campus because they were worried I would throw destructive parties and stuff- just because I was a student. When drunk kids die by falling out windows or trespass and get hit by trains it ruins the public perception of my college- and thus potentially lessens the value of my diploma when I am looking for employment.

If I came to work drunk or hung-over (or stoned or high) it would probably be the end of my job. Make it the same way for college classes. Whatever happened to that "preparation for the real world" thing?

Hell, American freshmen can drink so well they frequently die of severe alcohol intoxication before they puke. Now THAT's holding your liquor.

As if, Dillon! The poisoning has more to do with them having a desperately low tolerance for the alcohol due to a sever lack of prior training, an even more stupidly late legal age for sale and consumption (compared to the UK) and typically having only had access to pish-poor yank beer until they reach their university.

In my experience they can barely hold their glass after a couple, never mind anything else. Still, makes them easy to take in games of chance or a scrap. ;¬)

To much cash these young people today. When I was a lad we were so poor we had to share a half pint between six of us and make it last all night. And that despite the beer costing only 98 pence a pint. Now, where's my cocoa?

Luxury! When I were a lad there were 12 of us huddled round a thimble full of dregs which had to last all week after coming back from working at pit for 25 hours a day AND paying pit owner for t`privelidge!! /yorkshireman

Students getting drunk and coming to their (un?)timely ends is just another way that the Darwin process is weeding out the genetically inferior. Those with a low tollerance to a toxin that is wide-spread in the natural habitat are being removed from the gene pool to avoid society placing too much importance on indiviuals with a higher risk of critical failure.