Editor’s note: a student’s last name has been withheld because they discuss underage drinking in this story.

College students have long turned to fake IDs to skirt drinking laws, but new research shows there’s a cost to having a good time.

University researchers found that regular use of a fake ID increases the frequency of drinking and thus the risk of alcohol use disorders. The findings are particularly dangerous for those who already have high risk factors, said Amelia Arria, a faculty researcher at the university’s Prevention Research Center and the study’s principal investigator.

“If you have a false ID and you’re on the pathway to develop an alcohol problem, it will increase your risk even more,” she said.

Researchers followed about 1,015 students during their college career. They used the students’ drinking habits to discover almost two-thirds of them used fake IDs to drink before the age of 21. The connection between fake IDs and alcoholism was concerning, Arria said, and though the connection is indirect, fake ID use is a reliable indicator in studying alcohol use disorders.

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“We know that alcohol abuse and dependency are a major public health concern,” Arria said. “It’s a pervasive problem, and we need to understand very fully what the risk factors are for the development of these problems.”

The study won’t be published in science journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research until March, but raising awareness doesn’t have to wait until then.

Fake IDs can facilitate these future problems, but the counterfeit card alone wouldn’t lead to disorders and alcoholism. Often, the problem is the environments the IDs give students access to, which include social pressure to drink, said Laura Place, the Healthy TERPS coordinator. Healthy TERPS is part of the University Health Center’s substance abuse unit, which provides services for students to receive counseling and screening dealing with alcohol-related issues.

Being singled out from a group drinking regularly for not drinking can make anyone uncomfortable, Place said, so “people [drink] a lot to not feel weird.”

“Having a fake ID — at least according to some social groups, not the whole university — has become something that’s not only normal, but it’s expected,” Place said. “I’ve spoken with students that said they didn’t even really want to, they were just kind of expected to.”

Place also mentioned that there is not only a concern about alcohol abuse disorders, but other legal and social problems as well, based on the types of people who connect them to the fake IDs.

“It’s important for students to recognize that using a false ID isn’t a benign behavior,” Arria said.

Not only are they against the law, but fake IDs don’t help a person in any way, Arria said, as they easily contribute to excessive drinking and “takes you off the track that you came to college to accomplish.”

But Jasmine, a junior government and politics major, said buying a fake ID has made her social life easier.

“It was such a hassle to run around and find somebody to get me alcohol when I could just cut out the middle man and get my own,” she said. “Since [alcohol] became easier to get, I started drinking more because I could.”

Though most of her friends have fake IDs, Jasmine didn’t feel pressured to get one; it was a personal choice that has expanded her options for nightlife. She purchased her fake ID through a friend of a friend when she was 19, and said it was the best $85 she’s ever spent.

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Not only has it allowed to her to buy alcohol from liquor stores, but it also gave her access to bars in College Park, Washington and Ocean City. Jasmine, who is now 20, drinks a lot more now than she used to, going out three to four times a week and sometimes having up to 10 drinks in a night.

“Frat parties get old,” she said. “Why wait to go to the bars and have fun when I can do it now?”

And the thrill of breaking the law makes drinking underage so much more exciting, Jasmine said.

“I’ve never been fearful of using my fake ID, so I feel like I’ve always been 21,” she said.