Officials at Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center and Franciscan Skemp Medical Center in Wisconsin have reported an increase in young people with high blood-alcohol levels visiting local emergency rooms. Hospital officials said the increase is a result of a rise in binge drinking among college students.

Since 2000, Gundersen Lutheran has admitted 672 people under the age of 25 with an average blood-alcohol level of 0.161 percent, twice the legal limit of intoxication for driving a motor vehicle. Hospital records further show that 111 of under-25 admittances had a blood-alcohol level of 0.20 percent or greater, with individual BACs as high as 0.399 percent.

"We're seeing a lot more people in detox," said La Crosse Police Chief Edward Kondracki. "But it's only a small portion of the intoxicated persons who come to the attention of police officers. They're not just inebriated. They have to be incapacitated, unable to care for themselves, to go to detox ... They're like a turtle on its back."

According to Kondracki, police officers have the authority to take individuals to detox units if they are incapacitated, which is defined as being unconscious or having impaired judgment.

"It's frustrating for officers because their only intervention for someone so incapacitated is to take the person to the hospital," Kondracki said. "We're fortunate to have two quality detox units in town, but detox is a Band-aid approach and a manifestation of a bigger problem, and binge drinking is a symptom of a bigger problem."

Once police bring drunk students to the hospital, doctors determine whether they should be held for up to 24 hours. "The young ones are not complicated detox cases," said Dr. Christine Miller, medical director of alcohol and drug programs at Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center. "They often go home if they have friends who can watch them for 24 hours."

Mary Torstveit, alcohol-education coordinator at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, would prefer to see drunk college students placed in detox then left on their own. "If one of our students ends up in detox, I breathe a sigh of relief because the system has saved this one," Torstveit said.

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