And, the scene is part of a recorded television news report shown at a Tuesday meeting in the Cameron County Courthouse in Brownsville among border advocates discussing underage drinking. The project seeks to reduce alcohol and alcohol-related problems along the binational region. The meeting was a chance for Brownsville to share with other border communities possible solutions to the shared problem of U.S. teenagers crossing the border and drinking in Mexico. Members of the Border Project and Texans Standing Tall will meet with El Paso community leaders today. Texans Standing Tall is a statewide coalition to reduce underage drinking.
Alcohol is the most commonly used drug by teenagers.
Its abuse is linked to other problems such as drunken driving, violence and illegal drug use, according to Texans Standing Tall literature. Often the problem is that adults do not see underage drinking as wrong. Though underage drinking is a nationwide concern it is compounded on the border because of the accessibility of alcohol in Mexico, whose legal drinking age is lower than in the United States. Maps showed that party-goers came to Juarez from as far away as Albuquerque and the Texas Panhandle. Tijuana had visitors from southern Nevada and Phoenix.