Written By: Frances Harding, Director, Center for Substance Abuse Prevention
April is a time of renewal, which makes it a perfect time for individuals and communities to renew their commitment to underage drinking prevention. In fact, April is Alcohol Awareness Month, making it the most appropriate month of the year to spring forward with prevention efforts. The theme for this year’s observance is “Healthy Choices, Healthy Communities: Prevent Underage Drinking.”
This April, hundreds of communities across the Nation are hosting Town Hall Meetings, sponsored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services …

Written by: Frances M. Harding, Director, SAMHSA’s Center for Substance Abuse Prevention
In December 2011, the National Institute on Drug Abuse’s Monitoring the Future survey posted some fantastic news: Underage drinking by 8th, 10th, and 12th graders has reached historical lows. Among 12th graders, for example, past-month alcohol use dropped to 63.5 percent in 2010, down from a high of 74.8 percent in 1997. While this decrease is heartening, it also signals a need to step up our prevention game on college campuses. Underage college students drink often and excessively. …

With turkey, football games, and getting together with family and friends, the Thanksgiving holiday weekend is exceptionally busy.  This is also a time when there are more opportunities for binge drinking to become a problem for underage youth, young legal drinkers home for the holidays getting together with friends, and adults.
According to SAMHSA’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH):

There were an estimated 10.0 million underage (aged 12 to 20) drinkers in 2010, including 6.5 million binge drinkers and 2.0 million heavy drinkers.

Among young adults aged 18 to 25 in 2010, the …

Cross-posted from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation blog
The recent first-ever Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report on mental health issues in America, found that half of all Americans have a mental health issue at some point in their lives. Pamela Hyde, Administrator of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMHSA) a keynote speaker at this year’s APHA annual meeting, focused on what public health can do to identify these issues and improve prevention, treatment and recovery.  Watch her opening session speech here, and read an APHA Q&A with …

May 8 – 14 is Alcohol and Other Drug-Related Birth Defects Awareness Week. SAMHSA wants to use this as an opportunity to raise awareness and educate the public about Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD).
According to the Surgeon General’s Advisory on Alcohol Use in Pregnancy, when a pregnant woman drinks, so does her baby; thus, women, their partners, families, and friends need to understand that no amount of alcohol has been proven safe during any stage of pregnancy. Alcohol causes abnormalities when it crosses from the mother’s bloodstream through the umbilical …