NY Mom in Wrong-Way Crash Rarely Drank: Husband

(NEWSER) - It’s easy to condemn Diane Schuler—the mom who drove drunk and stoned the wrong way on a highway and killed herself, four children, and three others—writes Susan Cheever on Salon. But “for those of us who have ever driven a car after having a few beers, and for mothers who have driven in cars with too many small children, the story is more complicated." The real evil is alcoholism, writes Cheever, herself a former alcoholic, and judging one person won’t help a bit. More»

Wrong-way starlet pleads guilty to DUI

(NEWSER) - Giving the cast of The Simple Life an 0-for-2 record in the California courts, Nicole Richie was sentenced to 4 days in jail today after pleading guilty to driving the wrong way on an LA freeway while under the influence of drugs. The skeletal starlet must attend 21 days of alcohol-education classes and pay a $2,048 fine, E! Online reports. More»

Annual study shows 4th straight increase in marijuana use

(NEWSER) - Pot smoking among teenagers is increasing while teen alcohol consumption has sunk to historic lows, according to a national survey . Of 47,000 American students surveyed, 36.4% of 12th-graders had used marijuana in the past year, up from 32% in 2007, as had 28.8% of 11th-graders and 12.5% of 8th-graders. One in 15 high school seniors smoked pot daily, and one in nine smoked "synthetic" pot at least once. More»

Marijuana, cocaine, heroin given same treatment by child welfare agencies

(NEWSER) - Heroin, cocaine, and Mary Jane are all treated the same by child welfare authorities in New York City: even a legal amount of marijuana at home means your children can be taken away, even permanently, the New York Times reports. Several hundred of the city's casual dope smokers have been drawn into civil child neglect cases over the past few years, even though states and localities nationwide are loosening marijuana laws—and 730,000 residents of the Big Apple are said to use the drug annually. More»

The 'Wall Street Journal' discovers ... it's kind of hard to tell

(NEWSER) - It's that magical line that we try to avoid crossing while out on the town: a blood-alcohol concentration of .08%. And as the Wall Street Journal reports, most of us figure a few glasses of wine over dinner won't put us over the legal limit. The paper set out to test our assumptions: It threw a "BAC party," in which guests enjoyed alcohol, then blew into three different models of breathalyzers throughout the evening. So what's the magic number of "safe" drinks? The Journal discovers, frustratingly, it's a question with no consistent answer. Because one's BAC is not just individual, it's dependent on changing factors. More»