Halt the trend: Break with tradition of student binge drinking

Spring break has become an annual holiday honoring overimbibing of alcohol. It's time to stop the fad.

Editorial. April 1, 2002.

As we go to press, Spring Break 2002 is in full swing. Promoters of irresponsible drinking to college students, including package tour operators and bar owners, are hard at work and cashing in. Doctors in nearby emergency departments are getting busy too, dealing with the inevitable (and sometimes fatal) accidents, assaults and cases of alcohol poisoning that are considered a routine part of the celebration.

Excess is what the epidemic of binge drinking among college students is all about, and spring break is binge drinking at its most, well, excessive. One study found male students averaged 18 drinks a day during spring break partying -- that's about three times the number that qualifies as a single-sitting binge -- and females average better than half that number. Drinking until passing out or vomiting was not uncommon among either group.

The AMA Office of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse has recently focused attention on some of the more troubling aspects of spring break. They include resort communities that promote over-consumption of alcohol and package tours operators sending students to Mexico, where partiers can legally drink as young as 18. In both cases, the direct marketing to students is aggressive.

With all that drinking going on at spring break, no doubt most of the revelers won't be remembering much. But for others -- colleges, the communities that serve student populations, as well as parents -- spring break is an annual lesson in precisely what should not be tolerated in terms of students and alcohol. [...]