One got drunk nearly every weekend for five years. Another went into a coma and was hospitalized after a drinking binge. A third says her friends routinely drink until they throw up.

University students? Not yet.

These three participants at a community forum on high-risk drinking last week were Davis high-school and junior-high students.

Students, counselors, principals, parents, social workers, nurses and others who attended the forum said binge drinking is common among youths in Davis and elsewhere, and begins as early as the sixth or seventh grade.

UC Davis sponsored the May 9 forum at a Davis Community Church meeting hall in response to the alcohol-related death of senior David Thornton. The biological sciences student died April 4 after a night of drinking to celebrate his 21st birthday.

Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef said binge drinking is a growing problem on campuses across the country. He said the university hosted the forum in an effort to develop some answers. "Our intention is to reduce the occurrence of high-risk alcohol consumption. … It is a very real threat to the lives of our adults and young adults."

On Tuesday, Michelle Famula, director of the student health center, said UC Davis would draw on interest generated at the forum to establish three committees aimed at reducing high-risk drinking on campus and in the community.

About 20 individuals from the community have volunteered to serve on the committees.

"There is genuine interest in the community for trying to make a difference," said Famula, who is coordinating these efforts with Emil Rodolfa, associate director of the counseling center.

The campus also will invite students to participate in a roundtable discussion on how best to discourage high-risk drinking among their peers, Famula said.

Even after Thornton' death, many UC Davis students fail to recognize the dangers in their own drinking habits, according to Thornton's girlfriend, fourth-year biology student Lauren Tobin.

"No one thinks that something like this could happen to one of their friends," Tobin said. "People don't recognize the risks until someone crosses that fine line and doesn't survive."

She said some of her male classmates, in particular, use drinking as a bonding ritual, drinking competitively to earn each others' respect and friendship.

Tobin said that for many students, excessive drinking begins long before they arrive here. "I had people approach me after Dave's death saying they lost friends in high school," she said.

Of seven junior-high and high-school students on a forum panel, only one said she didn't drink. All said beer and other alcoholic beverages are easy for them to obtain.

"Alcohol has been a big part of my life since about eighth grade," said Sam Reynolds, a Davis High School senior and soccer athlete. "I drank as much as possible on weekends unless I had a soccer game the next day."

Reynolds said he stopped drinking about two months ago after he spent a night in Yolo County jail for being "just a little bit drunk" at a basketball game.

Many teens who drink have good relationships with their parents and do well in school, he said. "A lot of the kids drinking are kids at the top of the class-they're going to sweet schools."

One teen girl said she was hospitalized for alcohol poisoning a week before Thornton died. Her cousin also died a year ago from drinking too much, she said.

The girl said she rarely drinks. "I was stressed out. I decided to drink and it was the biggest mistake of my life," said the teen, her voice breaking.

Her mother said she always told her daughter not to drink, but that message alone didn't go far enough. "I forgot to tell her the difference between a pint of beer and a pint of vodka."

She suggested that classes be created for teaching parents how to talk to their kids about drinking.

Emily Levinson, a ninth-grader at Emerson Junior High School, said a number of her friends drink.

"I've seen kids throw up. I've seen kids just out of it. Everyone sneaks out. A lot of parents don't find out. It's common. It's not just what some kids do."

Davis High School Principal Joseph Mangiaracina said he deals with alcohol issues on an almost daily basis. "We have alcoholics on our campus," he said.

He said he believed only luck has saved the school so far from having a student die from alcohol poisoning.

Mangiaracina said solutions must come from the larger community. "We don't have the resources to address all of our problems, quite frankly."

Teens at the forum urged parents to support and communicate openly with their kids.

"Get us some things to do around town," added Elliot Cohen, a Davis High School junior. "There's nothing to do in Davis. Give us something to do on the weekend where we're not drinking."

Gretchen Peralta, an emergency-room nurse at Sutter Davis Hospital, said youths who bring their dangerously drunken friends to the hospital also have a responsibility to step in sooner.

However, she said the hospital does not report drunken youths to the police. "We have two fears, one that we would possibly lose a child for a very senseless reason. And No. 2, that the friends who bring this child in will hesitate to bring a child in the next time."

Davis Police Chief Jerry Gonzales said his department is installing phones in its patrol cars so officers can call parents immediately when they catch their teen children drinking. If we save one child, then we've done our job," Gonzales said.

Ron Hoogenboom, a social worker and a UC Davis alumnus, said many youths with drinking problems come from families where one or more parents abuse alcohol. Other factors contributing to teen drinking, he said, include peer pressure, depression, anxiety and high expectations on teens here to succeed.

Edgar Chen, a Davis High School graduate and a fourth-year UC Davis student, said peer pressure to drink intensifies five- to 10-fold in college.

Chen questioned why The Graduate and other bars offer promotional discounts on drinks, suggesting that they only encourage heavy drinking.

But Graduate manager Charlie Swanson said price promotions, such as seven drinks for the price of one, allows the restaurant and bar to better monitor how many drinks customers are consuming.

"The reason we started doing it is because nobody shows up at the bar until 11:30 at night," Swanson said. "Most drink someplace else first."

He added: "You do have to wait in line. We only serve two drinks per person" at a time.

But Tom Lovering, who owns the Cantina del Cabo, said the downtown Davis restaurant and bar doesn't offer drink promotions. "We don't think we should, and we don't want to deal with the consequences of it," he said.

A retired UC Davis professor and Alcoholics Anonymous member said he has seen dramatic changes in the support group's membership since he joined 20 years ago.

Of people attending AA meetings on campus, he said, more than half are women and most are people under age 30 who started drinking as young teen-agers.