Alarming figures

Girl ended up in hospital almost 80 times due to drugs

The girl had to go to the hospital again and again. (Symbolic image)(Bild: Pressefoto Scharinger/Daniel Scharinger)

A girl in Upper Austria was admitted to the children's hospital or youth psychiatric ward 79 times in just three years. 60 of those times she was pumped full of drugs. Very few teenagers are that damaged. But while "binge drinking" is at least declining slightly, the consumption of cannabis and cocaine is on the rise.

Do you remember when "binge drinking" by young people made headlines? At some point, public interest waned, but that didn't change anything.

For his master's thesis at the University Clinic for Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine in Linz, medical student Marco Breiteneder (29) analyzed data from 1,279 patients aged 12 to 18 who ended up in the children's hospital or psychiatric ward between 2019 and 2023 with various symptoms of poisoning. The average age was 16.

I found it alarming how widespread drug abuse is in our country. The same applies to alcohol. 

Medizinstudent Marco Breitender zum Studienergebnis

Bild: KUK

Significant shifts
"Our analysis shows significant shifts in the pattern of substances detected," says Breiteneder: "While alcohol continues to be the most commonly detected substance, cannabis and cocaine in particular have increased. The high proportion of mixed consumption patterns is also striking."

Girls are much more affected
The number of hospital admissions due to alcohol poisoning declined slightly. In 2023, there were 88 such total failures due to "binge drinking." About two-thirds of the cases occurred on weekends. Girls were affected more frequently, but boys had more severe cases and higher blood alcohol levels, which is why they ended up in intensive care more often.

Cocaine is on its way to becoming a popular drug like cannabis: evidence of this drug increased significantly. In 92 percent of cases, it was detected in the context of mixed consumption, predominantly with cannabis.

(Bild: P. Huber)

Both the number of positive cannabis tests and the frequency of repeated detections increased between 2020 and 2023, with 166 detections in 2023.

Shocking excesses
Some of the young patients stood out due to multiple excesses. Perhaps most shocking was the case of a girl who had to be hospitalized a total of 79 times within three years – 60 of those times due to mixed intoxication, i.e., various drugs in her blood. Another girl had to be hospitalized 35 times, and two others ten times each.

Incidentally, Breiteneder does not want to specialize in addiction disorders: he would rather become a general practitioner.

„Krone“-Kommenar

Es ist nur die Spitze des Eisbergs

"We are only seeing the tip of the iceberg," says Wolfgang Högler, head of the children's clinic, commenting on the alarming study results. And he warns that every case is a cry for help.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV, Alexander Schwarzl, Markus Wenzel)

Addiction is becoming an increasingly serious problem in our society, which is fixated on self-optimization – partly because many adults set an example by constantly staring at their cell phones, running marathons manically, or using pills, powders, and alcohol as everyday doping.

A critical look in the mirror, i.e., painful self-awareness, is usually avoided. Instead, we prefer to take a selfie. It's so much fun, and everyone is surely jealous.