Raising the legal age for sale of tobacco would keep teens from smoking, panel says; News Roundup

Juvenile Justice Reform

• Juvenile Justice Reform Bill Passes House (South Dakota Public Broadcasting)
  The state House of Representatives passed a bill revising the juvenile justice system in South Dakota. It focuses on alternatives to incarceration and seeks to keep kids in their communities. Senate Bill 73 comes as a result of a work group that met last year. The group found that South Dakota has one of the highest rates juvenile incarcerations, and the bill aims to reduce those numbers. Representative Brian Gosch is a prime sponsor of the measure. He says it creates a presumption of probation.

• Texas Voters Support Criminal Justice Changes, Survey Shows (JJIE)
  Texas voters support sending nonviolent drug offenders to treatment instead of jail, according to an opinion poll from Right on Crime, a national campaign for criminal justice reform. Voters also support decriminalizing school truancy, according to the poll.

• Positive Youth Justice, Part Four: William F. James Ranch, Santa Clara County, Calif. (The Chronicle of Social Change)
  Last month, The Chronicle of Social Change began “Positive Youth Justice: Curbing Crime, Building Assets,” a series that imagines an entire continuum of juvenile justice services built on the positive youth development (PYD) framework. We accomplish the “creation” of that continuum by profiling successful programs and organizations all over the country. Today, we look at Santa Clara County, Calif., which takes a PYD approach to working with incarcerated juvenile offenders.

• Nevada to close its only max security juvenile detention center (Reno-Gazette Journal)
  Nevada's only maximum security juvenile correction center is closing after the private non-profit contractor hired to run it repeatedly ran afoul of safety and civil rights requirements, state officials said Tuesday.
  

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Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment and Mental Health

• Raising the legal age for sale of tobacco would keep teens from smoking, panel says (The Washington Post)
  Raising the age for sale of tobacco across the United States could prevent substantial numbers of teenagers from beginning a smoking habit, an influential panel of scientists reported Thursday.

• Young Adult And Teen Suicide Rates Nearly Double In Rural Areas Compared To Urban Areas (Medical Daily)
  In the past, rural teens have been more likely to kill themselves as compared to their urban counterparts. Is the same true today, now that technology has woven us together more tightly? Sadly and surprisingly yes: Between the years 1996 and 2010, a new study finds, the rates of suicide among teens and young-adults ranged twice as high in country settings compared to city areas. In fact, the suicide rate in rural areas is nearly double that in cities... and rising.
• Marijuana may smoke your long-term memory (CBS News)
  Teenagers who smoke marijuana daily may have lingering memory problems and structural abnormalities in the brain, even after they stop using the drug, a small study suggests.

• New App Helps Doctors Catch Suicide Risk (NBC News)
  Doctors and other health professionals have a new tool to help fight suicide -- an app that helps them ask the right questions and check the symptoms of someone who might be at risk. Nearly half of people who die from suicide have seen a health professional of some sort in the month before their deaths and there are ways to find out who might be at risk and help them, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) says.