News

Gang homicides often occur in public and involve firearms, but are less likely to involve drugs or other crimes than generally believed by the public, according to a report released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Gang homicides frequently involve youth as victims and are often retaliatory reactions to gang conflict.

Researchers from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and State Farm insurance have shed light on why teens’ driving skills can spin out of control when friends are in the car.

A new national report reveals that 45.9 million American adults aged 18 or older, or 20 percent of this age group, experienced mental illness in the past year. The rate of mental illness was more than twice as high among those aged 18 to 25 (29.9 percent) than among those aged 50 and older (14.3 percent).

If you like to drink but want to stop and don't seem to have to willpower to do so, it may be because chemicals in your brain are telling you to order another pint, new research suggests

Almost half of drug poisonings are now from abuse of prescription painkillers, researchers note

But NIDA's 2011 Monitoring the Future Survey also shows continued high levels of abuse of alternate tobacco products, marijuana and prescription drugs

Statistics show that during Christmas and New Year's, two to three times more people die in alcohol-related crashes than during comparable periods the rest of the year.  And 40 percent of traffic fatalities during these holidays involve a driver who is alcohol-impaired, compared to 28 percent for the rest of December.

Watch a video about underage drinking from CADCA and NIAAA.

Minnesota must toughen its anti-bullying laws after drawing national attention in recent years for incidents in its schools, Attorney General Lori Swanson said Wednesday.

"Heroin is here, and we have never seen it like this before," Carol Falkowski, drug abuse strategy officer for the Minnesota Department of Human Services, said in a front-page Pioneer Press report a week ago. That's not cause for panic, but it is cause for notice.

Over the past year SAMHSA has changed the way it administered the State Mental Health (MHBG) and Substance Abuse Block Grants (SABG).  Beginning early last year, SAMHSA leadership started to look at the current and anticipated changes in the health care field, taking into consideration the changing roles of States, providers and consumers.

As the news that Amy Winehouse died from alcohol poisoning traveled around the world Wednesday, some were shocked to hear exactly how much alcohol the late singer had in her system at the time of her death. According to a pathologist who testified during the inquest, Winehouse's blood-alcohol level was .416 when she died, more than five times the legal limit for driving. In both the United States and Britain, the legal limit to drive is .08.