By Jason Collum, AFAJ staff writer
March 2003 – Warmer weather in much of the United States is still a few weeks away, but the arrival of March signals that spring break will soon be here.
Before turning their teens loose for some sun and fun, though, parents should be aware of just what awaits their kids, especially if Cancun, Mexico, or South Padre Island, Texas, are the destinations of choice. These locales and others have become prime spots for trip promoters to lure students with the promise of all the alcohol they could ever want. And, some of the promoters actually suggest kids lie to their parents about their intentions.
The practice of promoting alcohol to minors isn’t new, though. In fact, it’s been heading in this direction for a long time.
Andrew McGuire, executive director of the Trauma Foundation at San Francisco General Hospital, had been told of the situation in Cancun. In 2002, he went to Mexico to check it outΩ for himself. During the course of the week he was there, he saw enough.
“It’s one thing to observe kids vomiting at hotel balconies. It’s another to see a doctor pull up a database of injuries and deaths of young people,” McGuire said. The doctor he visited while there, Dr. Alberto Solá, showed McGuire the cold, hard facts about what a typical spring break is like in this city on the Yucatan Peninsula.
“Basically, here’s what he told me is typical of a spring break in March,” McGuire said. “In spring break there are approximately 100 to 200 severe injuries [that require hospitalization] in that month. Every year there are one, two or three deaths. I interviewed him on Thursday; the next Monday there was a death.”
That death was alcohol-fueled. Authorities said 20-year-old Michael Norman, a student from the University of Hartford, died after falling from a second-story balcony at a bar. He had been drinking heavily.
“The leading causes of death and severe injury in Cancun each year are falls from balconies, followed closely by motor vehicle crashes,” McGuire said. Alcohol consumption is at the heart of those crashes. Drowning is the third-leading cause.
The leading causes of other injuries are motor vehicle crashes and violence. The most troubling cause of injuries is the third-most-common: rape.
“There’s a lot of unintended, forced sex,” McGuire said. “And all of this is just in March. The numbers in June almost double when the high school kids are there.
“There are two to four deaths each June, and 300 to 400 injuries,” he said. “My guess is, this is due to less experience with alcohol, more craziness among boys thinking they’re superhuman, and . . . for around $50 you can get a wristband that will allow you to drink all you want basically around the clock.”
Don’t expect responsibility
The legal drinking age in Mexico is 18. Often, though, clubs ignore it.
“When you call the alcohol companies, they say they are technically obeying the law. But the fact of the matter is there are 16- and 17-year-olds drinking down there,” McGuire said.
With the alcohol flowing freely, and with teenagers and young adults away from parents – some for the first time in their lives – many consume heavy amounts of alcohol and do other things they wouldn’t normally do. Having unplanned, unprotected sex is one of those things.
The Review, the student newspaper of the University of Delaware, quoted a student named Rob who partied hard in Cancun. “I was dumb and drunk and it was hot,” the paper quoted him as saying. “Let’s just say the hormones were running wild. I met some girl at a club and the next thing I knew, it was morning and she was in my hotel room.”
Rob contracted genital herpes and chlamydia.
It’s not just the guys who go wild in Cancun, though. One 18-year-old high school senior bragged to the Detroit Free Press that she “made out with 11 guys” in one night of clubbing.
The atmosphere promotes heavy drinking and letting loose. The temptation, found virtually everywhere, can be too much for many to resist. McGuire said the young people he spoke to “loved it; they were in heaven.”
In promotion directly aimed at young men, McGuire said, “You have the Budweiser girls in unbelievably skimpy bikinis giving out free samples,” he said. “And on their bikinis, each breast has the Budweiser logo on it.”
Not just a problem outside the U.S.
The legal drinking age of 21 inside the United States is actually not much of a deterrent. Tour organizers promote locations such as Panama City Beach and Daytona Beach, both in Florida, with offers of unlimited drinking.
In March 2002, the American Medical Association denounced spring break promotions by tour companies and the alcohol industry that lured students with the promise of “booze cruises” and all-you-can-drink specials. A report in The Daytona Beach News-Journal said the AMA was especially critical of a Panama City Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau Spring Break Guide and of promotions for Cancun and Jamaica.
The promotion at issue appeared in campus newspapers around the country. The 12-page insert consisted of advertisements from hotels and clubs, many featuring an endless supply of alcohol. According to published reports, one example from the insert read, “Pay 5 bucks, and you can drink all the beer you can handle – every day.”
Tour operators: no moral compass
Don’t expect tour operators and promoters to change course anytime soon, or to be responsible, either.
One tour company operator told USA Today, “There’s the drunk, drugged-up partiers having sex with everyone they can, and [there’s] the people who go to Nicaragua and build houses. I don’t want to be a moral warrior. [On the other hand] I don’t want to be sitting here telling people to go get wasted.”
That same tour company promotes Cancun on its Web site with these exact words: “Benefits of going to Cancun are many, yes, but most students just care about the abundance of alcohol, alcohol and wait, you guessed it, more alcohol. Your yearly intake of alcoholic consumption could happen in one small week in Cancun, Mexico, on spring break. Do I have to say more?
“For those of you worried about what your parents might say, tell them it’s an ‘educational trip.’ You are working to graduate college with a minor in heavy drinking. And best of all, Mom, I don’t have to worry about drinking the water and getting sick, because I will only be drinking beer.”
One tour organizer in Michigan sold $49 wristbands to teens from two local high schools. The Cancun travel package the high schoolers bought included breakfasts, dinner, beach activities and 35 hours of unlimited drinking, according to the Detroit Free Press.
The travel agent there said she went out of her way to explain to parents the drinking age in Mexico is 18, but largely unenforced. “I try to be very up-front with parents,” she said. She told students that Student Express would allow students under 18 to purchase the bands, and that it was up to the kids to refrain from drinking.
Officials from Student Express told the Free Press it’s up to the teenagers to make sure they only drink if they’re old enough and they drink responsibly.
What to do?
McGuire sees only one solution: raising excise taxes on alcohol in the United States. He said there is a direct correlation between how much youths drink and how much they can afford. Currently, because of lobby´ing efforts on the part of the alcohol industry, McGuire said Congress has kept some taxes artificially low on certain types of alcohol. And one of the things the alcohol industry is doing in places like Cancun and Panama City is working with youths to build brand loyalty.
Also, the alcohol industry has made moves to target a younger market through advertising. McGuire said Congress must pass stricter standards and limit the alcohol industry’s ability to pitch its products to young people.
McGuire suggested concerned parents call their congressional representatives and voice their concerns over the direction spring break promotion of alcohol has taken. Also, parents need to be aware of what their children are doing and where they’re going during spring break.
One more 20-year-old getting drunk and getting killed is one too many. 
