Universities urged: Ban the freshers' week booze ups

The opening of the academic year has traditionally been an opportunity for new students to get to know each other, familiarise themselves with their surroundings and join societies.

But doctors say the original purpose has become lost in an alcoholic haze as students both new and established take advantage of cheap drink promotions continuing for up to three weeks.

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Gordon Brown and his policy advisers are said to be investigating whether the higher education funding quango could use its powers to ban universities from encouraging excessive alcohol consumption.

Professor Oliver James told Mr Brown he was "appalled" by the quantity of drinking during freshers' week at his university, Newcastle.

Professor James, an expert in liver disease, is head of the medical faculty and has banned adverts for pub crawls and discounted drinks during freshers' week.

At Durham University, a student group called the Diced Carrot Club is said to encourage members to drink until they are sick.

And Reading University pleaded with licensees to stop drinks promotions after one bar chain parked a double-decker bus outside a hall of residence and offered freshers free beer.

Other universities, such as Nottingham Trent, have rebranded freshers' week "welcome week" to get away from associations with alcohol.

There are also concerns that some undergraduates, including increasing numbers of international students, feel alienated by the university drinking culture.

"Students are being positively encouraged to go out and get blind drunk for a fortnight," said Professor James.

"This kind of practice just imprints the binge-drinking culture.

"It is no longer just for a week and it is no longer just for freshers: all students take part."

However leading politicians themselves have not been unfamiliar with drunken student high jinks.

Photographs exist of Home Secretary Jacqui Smith playing a drinking game known as "bunnies" in her pyjamas at Oxford.

Tory universities spokesman David Willetts said: "I fear if the Government is going to pick a fight with students enjoying a few drinks, the Government will lose."