Spring Breakers Now Need to Pinky Promise Not to Do Drugs in Tulum

Tourists arriving in Mexican beach resorts Tulum and Cancun for spring break are being asked to sign a document that warns them not to take drugs.

The new efforts are part of measures by the state government to try to tackle the recent spike in drug-related murders in those popular beach areas. 

“Don’t put yourself at risk. Drug dealers at beaches and nightclubs will get you into trouble. They are not your friends. They’re criminals,” reads the warning that’s being handed out at every hotel in the state of Quintana Roo, where Tulum and Cancun are located. All visitors are required to sign before checking in. 

The state of Quintana Roo has seen a surge in drug-related violence in recent months, which local law enforcement and security analysts connect to criminal rivalries around the booming markets for cocaine and other drugs fed by visiting tourists with money to spend. 

In October last year, armed men killed two tourists and wounded three others outside a trendy restaurant in Tulum. A few months earlier, in June, a group of alleged hitmen riding jet-skis killed two men in the popular resort of Cancun. That same month, two men were found dead, killed by gunshots, on a beach in Tulum. 

In January, two alleged Canadian mobsters were killed inside the restaurant of a high-end resort in Playa del Carmen. Authorities blamed a drug deal gone wrong. 

There were more than 200 homicides in Quintana Roo through the first three months of 2022, according to official figures by Mexico’s National Security System. The majority of the killings occurred outside the resort areas frequented by tourists. Still, authorities believe street-level drug dealing is behind the spike in murders, according to Quintana Roo Hotel Association’s president, David Ortiz Mena.

“We have a drug consumption problem that up until now had been taboo,” Ortiz said during a press conference last week. “This campaign will bring awareness to visitors.” 

The campaign aims to put pressure on tourists to stop buying drugs at beach areas, but the document itself has no legal consequences. 

In Quintana Roo, nine out of 10 murders are drug-related, according to recent news reports, and cocaine and marijuana are the top-selling drugs. In the last five years, drug dealing has increased by some 200 percent, according to official figures. 

Tourist destinations like Tulum, Cancun, and Playa del Carmen are known to cater to the drug market for foreign visitors, who often have more money to spend than locals do. 

In October, VICE World News saw drug dealers openly selling cocaine, ecstasy, marijuana, and other drugs in some of Tulum’s fanciest restaurants. Security analysts have said recent changes in local political power have detonated the simmering power struggles among the criminal gangs operating in the region. 

Quintana Roo recently underwent elections and most local and state police chiefs were replaced. Eduardo Guerrero, a security analyst at Lantia Intelligence firm, said: “Criminal organizations tend to renegotiate criminal agreements with every new chief of police stepping up.”