Rise in EMS calls leads to concern over student drinking habits

According to a national study, 31 percent of college students engage in behavior that could be classified as alcohol abuse. Though Vassar's results from the Spring 2010 National College Health Assessment indicate that only 20 percent of Vassar students have problematic drinking behaviors, incidents of alcohol overdose are on the rise. On Sept. 23, Dean of the College Christopher Roellke sent an e-mail to all students urging them to observe safe drinking behavior. His message came in response to the weekend of Sept. 18 and 19 in which five students required medical attention and two were due to excessive alcohol consumption.

The weekend's rash of alcohol-related emergencies were not isolated incidents, but, according to Roellke, are indicative of a pattern of irresponsible drinking this semester. According to Roellke's e-mail, "during the first three weeks of our academic year, the Arlington Fire District's emergency response team has been dispatched more than 20 times to respond to alcohol-related emergencies".

When a student calls x7333, the extension for Vassar's Campus Response Center, Vassar College Emergency Medical Services (VCEMS) is usually the first responder when a student requires medical attention, with an average arrival time of four minutes after the call has been placed. About half of all calls that VCEMS responds to are alcohol-related. Since 2005 Vassar has had a "Good Samaritan" policy that states that "no student seeking medical treatment for his or her alcohol or drug overdose, or assisting another student in obtaining such medical treatment will be subject to College discipline for the sole violation of using alcohol or drugs or of providing alcohol or drugs." This policy can encourage students to seek medical attention early enough to avoid a serious medical issue. According to an e-mailed statement from VCEMS Captain Samuel Black '12, without it, "students would have to make the decision between getting in trouble and getting help for themselves or their friend, [and] that's not a situation we ever want a student to have to worry about."

Between Aug. 24, when VCEMS began operating for this academic year, and Sept. 26, VCEMS responded to 55 emergency calls, a 41 percent increase over the 39 calls EMS had responded to at that point in 2009. The number of calls that VCEMS receives has been steadily increasing in recent years. In 2002, the earliest year for which statistics are available, VCEMS responded to just 56 calls over the entire fall semester; this year they have nearly reached that total in just a month.

Not only have the number of calls increased, the calls have seen an increase in severity. Vassar has seen a 73 percent increase from this point in 2009 in the number of patients sent to the hospital for alcohol overdoses.

VCEMS has also seen a marked increase this year in the number of unconscious patients they encounter. "While we cannot pinpoint a cause for this observed increase in severity, over the past year we have noticed a trend towards increased drinking of hard alcoholic beverages," Black wrote in an e-mailed statement. Hard alcoholic drinks, such as vodka, rum or tequila, can have a 40 percent or higher alcohol content, intoxicating drinkers far more efficiently than beer, which has about a five percent alcohol content. Hard alcohol's link to alcohol poisoning has prompted Colby College, Bowdoin College and Bates College to ban hard alcohol on their campuses. Students, even those of legal drinking age, are not permitted to have possession of beverages with a 40 percent or higher alcohol content.

Black also points out as a cause for the higher numbers of unconscious students that "this year there seems to be an increase in the consumption of alcoholic beverages containing caffeine." Caffeine in an alcoholic beverage can mask the effects of alcohol, distorting the drinker's perception of how intoxicated he or she actually is. Drinks such as Four Loko, a caffeinated malt beverage, have been prevalent at Vassar and on college campuses throughout the nation.

Containing four standard drinks at around $2.50 a can, Four Loko is cheaper than its alcoholic equivalent in four $1 beers. The drinks' popularity has also brought controversy. Lawsuits and investigations from the Food and Drug Administration into the health hazards of mixing alcohol and caffeine have prompted many manufacturers of alcoholic energy drinks to discontinue product lines or remove the addition of caffeine to their drinks, as has been the case with Sparks, one of the first alcoholic energy drinks on the market. New York Senator Charles Schumer urged the Federal Trade Commission in July to investigate whether alcoholic energy drinks market to underage drinkers. Drinks like Four Loko are particularly attractive to young drinkers, with sweet flavors like fruit punch or lemonade that mask the taste of alcohol and bright cans that resemble nonalcoholic energy drinks, sometimes enough to fool police or security officers.

In the Vassar Student Association (VSA) Council meeting on Sept. 26, Council members discussed ways of encouraging responsible drinking behavior from within the student body, responding not only to health issues but also to property damage in dormitories that tends to be related to alcohol consumption and has increased accordingly. Raymond House President Lita Sacks '12 wrote in an e-mailed statement that Raymond has "had two window screens punched out, a picture drawn on the wall in lipstick and a hall phone ripped out of the wall. Raymond normally experiences this much damage and vandalism over the course of the year. This all happened in one night." She attributes this wilder behavior to the presence of Four Loko, saying of its drinkers, "People don't realize the high alcohol content of the drink. Even though they feel sober, they are already well on their way to being drunk."

Some of the blame may also be placed on a self-propagating binge drinking culture at Vassar, in which students feel that because their peers drink heavily, they too should consume large quantities of alcohol. Recommendations discussed in the VSA Council meeting included an increase in the availability and quality of alternative programming, to which President of Strong House Sophie Wasserman '13 responded, "I don't like that its called alternative," pointing out that this phrasing reinforces the idea that alcohol-related activities are the norm. House presidents considered holding events on weekend nights designed to replace pregaming, or drinking in preparation for a party. A focus of discussion was on preventing first-year students from being indoctrinated into the belief that all Vassar students do and should drink alcohol heavily and often.

The Office of Health Education is responsible for providing community and individual education on alcohol issues among other wellness concerns and for running alternative programming during times where students are at high-risk for drinking large amounts of alcohol. It publishes Safer Drinking Guidelines that warn students that "energy drinks mixed with alcohol will mask the depressive effects until it is too late and lead to overdose." Director of Health Education Renee Pabst believes that increases in drinking, especially among first-year students are because of the "college effect," in which freshmen who may have abstained from alcohol in high school begin to drink, often heavily, at college.

Programs such as AlcoholEdu, a required online alcohol orientation for freshmen, are designed to lower the college effect, and the Office of Health Education will soon be implementing a bystander intervention program that will teach students how to act in situations when their peers engage in dangerous drinking activities. "We are by no means naïve," writes Pabst. "We know that college students will choose to drink but it is the risk of drinking we want to lower."

Both VSA Council and College administrators are working to prepare for Halloween, given the pattern of heavy drinking. On Halloween of 2009, VCEMS was dispatched 20 times and five students were hospitalized. This was the highest amount of calls for a single night since the activation of VCEMS. If the increase in calls on regular weekends this fall translates into an increase in calls on Halloween, Vassar students requiring medical attention will present a significant strain on both VCEMS and the Arlington Fire District emergency response team. Roellke wrote that the College is considering having an ambulance stationed on campus on Halloween. Roellke noted that this measure "is designed to recognize the burden we place on our Arlington Fire District."

Students and administration will continue to work together to alleviate the trend of high risk drinking at Vassar. According to Pabst, "this is a community issue and it will take all of us to address it and work to change the culture."