MEDIA ADVISORY

Date of Advisory: March 12, 1999

             Spring Break College Drinking Problems & Solutions

Local and National Initiatives

CONTACT: Mary Ann Dunwell, IHA 520-4121 cell/ 474-8844 ext.33
          

WHAT: San Diego university students, authorities from Rosarito and Tijuana, Mexico, higher education alcohol prevention professionals from 10 states, American Medical Association representatives, San Diego city and county elected officials, San Diego, National City and Rosarito police, all speak out about the serious public health & safety risks and solutions to student binge drinking nationwide and the problems created by anything-goes, spring break partying both in Mexico and the U.S. Participants react to April issue of Playboy magazine that names Rosarito as the number one spring break destination to drink with the ‘girls, beaches, bars and thongs…get wild, get naked’.
WHEN: 11:30 a.m., FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 1999
        
WHERE:   Bristol Court Hotel Lobby, 1055 1st Avenue, Downtown San Diego (1/2 block north of Broadway)
  
WHY:  Student binge drinking leads to alcohol-related problems
  • Student binge drinking is the most serious problem facing college campuses.
  • More than 41% of college students binge drink. (5 or more drinks at one sitting)
  • Advertisers and promoters offer college student binge drinking vacation packages to Rosarito, Tijuana, Ensenada, Mexico.
  • Playboy magazine fuels teenage drinking problems that prevention professionals, lawmakers, elected officials and community groups are battling to extinguish.
  • The two most respected college alcohol prevention organizations nationally—A Matter of Degree: The National Effort to Reduce High-Risk Drinking among College Students (AMOD), administered by the American Medical Association (AMA) and supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation—and the Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention, under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Education—are meeting & strategizing in San Diego about campus alcohol problems. National experts and program leaders will speak about the problem and outline alternative activities.
  • Mexican authorities and communities say ENOUGH! Don’t trash our towns. San Diegans join them.
  • Last spring break, a 500 person riot broke out in Rosarito—13 Americans were deported.
      
COMMENTS: "Playboy Magazine’s promotion of binge drinking is outrageous and completely irresponsible," said Tom Colthurst, associate director of the Higher Education Center at the University of San Diego Department of Psychiatry. "We have to remember that binge drinking can kill. At the very least, it puts young people at great risk of injury, unwanted or unprotected sex, violence and trouble with police. Parents should really think twice about what they’re allowing their children to get into."
     
Richard Yoast, PhD, director of the Office of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse at the American Medical Association, called for an end to "this exploitation of college students with the dangerous and false promise of unlimited sex and alcohol." Yoast, who directs A Matter of

Degree: The National Effort to Reduce High-Risk Drinking Among College Students, said that such irresponsible promotion of binge drinking is not just the fault of publications such as Playboy, but also beer companies that use sex to sell their products. He added that we blame students for binge drinking and the problems it creates, when it’s adults who are promoting and advertising alcohol in dangerous ways. "How can we as adults promote the kind of behavior that we know places our children in jeopardy?" he asked. "In virtually any city or small town in America on any given day, college and high school students—even kids as young as 11 and 1 2 years old—are being harmed in some way by alcohol. Some die in car crashes, others from alcohol poisoning or from an alcohol-related injury. Many others simply fail classes, lose self esteem from alcohol induced behavior that they are ashamed of. Others—perhaps as many as half of college binge drinkers—go on to become alcoholics. Isn’t it time we said enough is enough?"

       

VISUALS: Poster board sized Playboy magazine clips, other promotions. Location is well lit and liveshot accessible.
 

WHO: Supervisor Greg Cox, SD County—Will convene the event (619) 531-5439

Richard Yoast, Director AMA project (available at hotel 619 294-3319)

Ignacio Garcia, Rosarito Chief of Police 0115266121321

Representative, Rosarito Mayor’s Office 0115266120333

Hector Reyes, Baja Tourism Dept. Rosarito office 0115266120200

Edgardo Flores, Director Tijuana ABC 0115266834018

Captain Adolfo Gonzales, SD Police Dept. (619) 424-0410

Sgt. Lanny Roark, National City Police (619) 336-4438

Council member Juan Vargas, SD City (619) 236-6688

Anthony Ramirez, UCSD student & public health activist (619) 583-8387

James Baker, IHA Executive Director (619) 520-7211 cell/ (619) 474-8889

Tom Colthurst, Assoc. Dir., Higher Ed Center AOD Prevention (619) 551-2951

Marian Novak, Project Coor., SDSU Prevention Partnership (619) 793-1585

Ray DiCiccio, Dir.SD Co. Youth Access to Alcohol Policy Panel (619)260-1612

Nancy Wahlig, Dir.Student Safety Awareness, UCSD (619) 234-6360

Josh Aull, President, Student to Student SDSU

 

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