Serving alcohol to high school students

The Advance finally got access to the McAllen police report Tuesday concerning the tragic accident involving Nikki Rowe High School Senior Adan De La Cruz, who excelled in both academics and sports.

He should have started his senior year this week, the start of the football season not far off, but instead he’s lying in a local hospital with an apparent severe head and/ or neck injury, his condition not yet released to the public.

His poor parents, family, friends.

Just the year prior, De La Cruz was named First Team All-District 15-5A DI after posting a team-leading 82 total tackles, and there was no reason to believe that this football season wouldn’t see him do more of the same, if not more.

Instead, a dad and his son decided it would be okay to host a party for teens at a residence in the 4700 block of Bentsen Rd. According to statements given to the McAllen PD, it was supposed to be for only three teens, a small get-together, but with the help of social media and a 51-year-old guy willing to supply alcohol to those underaged, the small event quickly turned into a full-blown party for teens.

People say the party was for the seniors, but at the residence after police were called at approximately 2 a.m. last Saturday, one teen detained was only 16.

At this point, the story is all over local and state media. Don’t feel like writing it all out today (Tuesday). Just go online and type in the poor kid’s name, and countless news stories will pop up with all the pertinent details related to this tragedy, stemming from the same police report I’m now looking at while I shake my head in disgust at the party organizers.

Police unit rolls up to the scene and the officer sees multiple teens running to their vehicles to split the residence, which makes you wonder, how many drunk teens were on the road that night after the accident?

On top of that, in this sick world of ours, there is now this video floating around the ether that shows Adan De La Cruz climbing on top of the gazebo by the side of the pool. One guy had already jumped into the water, but when De La Cruz tried it, his foot slipped and he fell head first onto the concrete below.

More on this story next week, or later this week as more details are released. Already several people are in custody, charged with supplying alcohol to minors.

To make sure plenty of teens showed up to party, multiple digital flyers had been posted on social media platforms, according to the police report, advertising the Friday night party that drifted into early Saturday morning. It also cost money to attend. A $10 ticket could be purchased before the party began, or the teens would be charged $15 at the door.

Call it the dark side of social media. Call it the dark side of the alcohol industry, if truth be told.

The Money Shot

These days on TV and in the movies, the alcohol industry pumps money into the right pockets so on almost every show, people always have a glass or can of something in their hand — beer, wine, whiskey, margaritas. Good times. Even on the Hallmark movies they’re all drinking.

The politicians drink, so they’re never going to pass legislation banning alcohol advertising. They don’t smoke, but they drink. Some with either their girlfriend, wife, or both if they’re really into swinging.

Of course, they never show the downside. Like the people I’ve driven to detox over the years, begging me to stop to pick up a six pack while I drove them there. Or calling me at night while their wife was out of town, begging me to go buy a bottle for them because they were in the kitchen corner, suffering from DTs, seeing pink elephants.

You ever notice on the beer commercials how all the actors always look buffed, the women with perfect figures?

In other words, beer and sex sell.

The Political Hustlers

Plus, face it, most politicians love to guzzle the liquid mind-altering drug, which may explain why many of them seem to make up laws of which only a drunk would be proud.

At the center of almost all this societal dysfunction, one common denominator — alcohol, AKA, the legal drug.

The conservatives worry about the trans community ruining the minds of their kids? Why don’t they worry about the alcohol industry polluting those same young minds?

Because most parents drink.

Alcohol is indeed a drug, albeit legal, and I would argue, based on the number of people it harms, it’s the worst drug out there.

Drunk in moderation, it doesn’t cause a problem for most people unless they are a diabetic, perhaps, or suffer from hypertension, or alcoholism runs in the family. It has caused devastation to many families, however, as we’re now seeing with the uptick in fatal alcohol-related car wrecks.

Meanwhile, all across the Valley, at city-sponsored events, beer distributors are allowed to set up shop as long as they toss in some money to help sponsor the event. They toss in a grand to help sponsor the event and make 10 times that selling beer.

What a deal.

All of this might not be as bad if the advertising, the ever-presence of alcohol at every social function, didn’t imprint the false impression on the minds of teenagers that drinking is a great way to have fun, have a ball, in both the figurative and literal sense.

Drug Awareness at schools?

How about, having alcohol awareness at schools yearround?

That might be a start. Hang up a poster of a drunk living on a sidewalk.

No, wait, most of the faculty and parents drink, so we can’t have that.

The real harm done, and that really is an understatement, is like the one done this past weekend at a highschool party that involved alcohol.

Also, it’s possible that Adan De La Cruz had no alcohol in his system when he tried to make his fateful jump into the pool and then missed his mark. Just because alcohol was all around him, that doesn’t mean he drank any.

Still, at wild parties where the alcohol is flowing freely, there are plenty of drunks urging people to do things they normally wouldn’t do.

All we can do at this point is pray that Adan De La Cruz can somehow make a miraculous recovery.

For the people who supplied the alcohol, I hope the DA drops the hammer on them.