Most of the teenagers caught drunk and disorderly said they were sent to Cornwall with alcohol, rather than attempting to buy it in local shops.
Supt Julie Whitmarsh from Devon and Cornwall Police described the statistics as "scary".
The force has called for a "national debate" about parental responsibility.
It said although some parents were shocked about their children's behaviour, others  verbally abused officers who confiscated the alcohol.
Many of the 15 and 16-year-olds stopped had been allowed to travel to Cornwall alone with friends to celebrate the end of exams.
More than 4,000 under-18s visited Newquay over the summer, according to figures from a Newquay Safe Partnership campaign to prevent underage drinking.
During Operation Brunel, officers confiscated 1,044 unopened bottles and cans of alcoholic drink and poured away more than 5,000 that were open.
The force said it was talking to the Home Office about ways of prosecuting parents who stock their children up with drink before they leave home.
Supt Whitmarsh said drinking on holiday with peers, without parental control, was a "different situation" than having alcohol at home.
"At what point is it a good idea to leave children with alcohol," she said.
In the most serious cases, parents were telephoned and told to collect their children while a further 71 families were sent warning letters.
Supt Whitmarsh said one officer was verbally abused by a parent who accused him of stopping her son "having fun". The teenager was one of four 16-year-olds caught with 64 cans of Special Brew.
Another mother dismissed an officer's concerns, claiming her child was "not the usual riff-raff".
Police said these were examples of parents not taking their role seriously.
Newquay Safe Partnership was formed in 2009 after the deaths of two teenagers.
Andrew Curwell, 18, from Saddleworth in Greater Manchester, was found at the foot of cliffs at Great Western Beach on 28 June and the following week, 16-year-old Paddy Higgins, from Wokingham in Berkshire, died after falling from cliffs above Tolcarne Beach.

In November 2014, Charlie was training in Sweden when she lost control of her skis, veering off course into the forest and landing on a boulder.
After a year of rehabilitation, she is back in Austria training.
Following a race on Sunday, she has now been launched up the rankings for alpine slalom skiing to number 84.
Charlie, who has skied since she was seven, fought hard to get back in the game, and managed to make it to the world skiing championships just 11 weeks after the crash.
And last Sunday, when competing in a race in Austria, she achieved a result that has pushed her into the top 100 skiers in her category in the world.
Back home in Perth this week, she said: "It's been a turbulent journey. I've had a lot of ups and downs over the last year.
"After making it to world championships, I had a good few races back in Europe and I made loads of personal bests.
"But by the time we got to March, I had more back problems than I'd ever had before.
"It wasn't happening that well for me."
Charlie said that before her accident, making it into the top 100 was still her goal and now - just over a year later - she's delighted to have made that happen.
"We've come out this season with everything we were looking to get," she said.
"It's quite rewarding to have that after after a long periods of constant rehab and recovery and things going wrong."
She added: "We knew what kind of result I'd need to be able to get into the top 100.
"On Sunday, I had a race in Austria that I won by 1.4 seconds or something like that. Immediately we knew that that was going to be a good enough result to get me into the top 100.
"I was number 84 and it was really cool to see that next to your name.
"There's still a lot more work I want to do - I want to be number one in the world.
"Everything was really worth it in the end."
Seven out of 10 under-age drinkers caught in the Cornish holiday resort of Newquay were given alcohol by their parents, according to police.
[NEXT_CONCEPT]
Just over a year after breaking her spine, Scottish skier Charlie Guest has made it into the list of the world's top 100.