The White House's attempt to bring attention to the problem of binge drinking among high school students on spring break got drowned out by an exaggerated claim about the extent of the problem.

The Boston Herald reported March 16 that the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) claimed that 1 in 7 high-school students under age 18 were allowed to travel unsupervised to alcohol-soaked spring break destinations link Cancun.

But the agency later retracted the claim, saying it did not have the data to support the claim. An ONDCP spokesperson Rosanna Maietta, blamed faulty math and "human error." A revised press release from ONDCP said that about 15 percent of youths on spring break trips are high-school students.

Still, said Maietta, "the fact is there are more and more people going on these trips."

Travel agencies interviewed by the Herald said very few kids under age 17 go on such trips unsupervised. Michael Palmer, executive director of the Student Youth Travel Association, said: "Of those that are going to party destination spring-break trips, 15 to 20 percent are high-school students. We don't know how many are 18 or how many under 18. We don't have any information to determine if they are chaperoned or unchaperoned."