This festival will showcase the talents of all youth around the City. It is free of charge and will include artists, music, entertainment, and food vendors.

The festival will take place on Saturday, June 8, 12:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. at George Washington Middle School. For more information contact Jason Ellis at [email protected].

Dr. Giordana De Altin Popiolek, a clinical psychologist with the Department of Community and Human Services, who has worked with children and adolescents, will present information on the impact of violence on children and how to respond when they have questions or concerns about a violent event.

The event will take place on Thursday, June 13, 7 p.m. to 8:45 p.m. at the Charles Houston Recreation Center, 905 Wythe Street.

For more information contact Friends of the Mental Health Center at [email protected].

Some college students are experimenting with inhaling alcohol by pouring it over dry ice and "smoking" the vapors, according to an expert who says the practice is dangerous.

Young adults are inhaling alcohol to get high without ingesting calories, the Daily News reports. Dr. Harris Stratyner, Regional Clinical Vice President of Caron Treatment Centers in New York, told the newspaper, "When you inhale alcohol, it goes directly into the lungs and circumnavigates the liver. The liver is what metabolizes alcohol, but when you inhale it, it goes directly from the lungs to the brain." The practice is more likely to lead to deadly alcohol poisoning than drinking liquor, he said. Inhaling alcohol vapors can dry out the nasal passages and mouth, making a person more susceptible to infection, Stratyner added.

Inhaling alcohol has become more popular in the past year and a half, Stratyner said. "This is a stupid, highly dangerous thing to do. The fact that youngsters in particular can purchase the equipment for a relatively cheap price...this has to be made illegal."

People who drink to improve their mood are three times more likely to become dependent on alcohol, compared with those who don't use alcohol to feel better or stay calm, new research suggests.

Among people with an increased risk of alcohol dependence, those who drink to improve their mood are less likely to become sober several years later, compared with people who don't drink to ease painful emotions, the Los Angeles Times reports.

One new study, published in JAMA Psychiatry, included people who were at increased risk of alcoholism, who were asked whether they drank to improve their mood or reduce tension. They were interviewed again several years later, to determine whether they had become, or stayed, alcohol-dependent. "Drinking to self-medicate mood symptoms may be a potential target for prevention and early intervention efforts aimed at reducing the occurrence of alcohol dependence," the researchers wrote.

A second study, published in the same journal, used brain scanners in 45 people with alcoholism at an inpatient treatment program, while they were in the first four to eight weeks of a 12-step program. They were asked to think about situations when they were relaxed, and then to imagine highly stressful situations or those associated with heavy drinking.

Patients who would later relapse were more likely than those who did not return to drinking to show low activity in regions of the brain associated with regulation of mood, emotional arousal and cognitive control when they thought about stressful situations or drinking-related scenarios. When they were relaxed, they showed increased activity in these brain regions.