Colleges Warning Spring Breakers About Mexica

*from Asheville Citzen Times*

The U.S. State Department and universities around the country are warning college students headed for Mexico for some spring-break partying of a surge in drug-related murder and mayhem south of the border.

“We're not necessarily telling students not to go, but we're going to certainly alert them,” said Tom Dougan, vice president for student affairs at the University of Rhode Island. “There have been Americans kidnapped, and if you go, you need to be very aware and very alert to this fact.”

More than 100,000 high school- and college-age Americans travel to Mexican resort areas during spring break each year. Much of the drug violence is happening in border towns, and tourists have generally not been targeted, though there have been killings in the big spring-break resorts of Acapulco and Cancun, well away from the border.

At Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, it's standard operating procedure to advise students to use caution wherever they go during spring break, whether it's home, to the beach, out of the country or on an alternative spring break service-learning activity, Jane Adams-Dunford, WCU's assistant vice chancellor for student affairs, wrote in an e-mail.

WCU's spring break is next week.