Nearly half of all American college students binge-drink or abuse prescription or illegal drugs, according to a report released today by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse.

The 231-page report, “Wasting the Best and Brightest: Substance Abuse at America’s Colleges and Universities,” collates four years of research and previously published data, and echoes many themes and findings of past reports on the issue.

It says that drug abuse and excessive alcohol consumption among students have been on the rise since 1993, and links that risky behavior with increases in alcohol-related deaths and higher rates of rape, assault, vandalism, depression, and suicide on campuses.

“It’s time to get the ‘high’ out of higher education,” said Joseph A. Califano Jr., president of the organization, which is based at Columbia University, and a former U.S. secretary of health, education, and welfare.

In a written statement accompanying the report, he lays the blame for those trends at the feet of higher education’s “Pontius Pilate presidents and parents, deans, trustees, and alumni,” whose “acceptance of a status quo of rampant alcohol and other drug abuse puts the best and the brightest — and the nation’s future — in harm’s way.”