"Involved" is a nice weasel word that was invented to imply 'caused' without having to prove it.
But that's a meaningless distinction if you're concerned about the impact of DUI to the public. So "alcohol involved" is more accurate and gets to the meat of what we actually care about.
By analogy to the gun debate which you're alluding to, saying "gun involved" deaths would neatly circumvent the "but guns don't shoot themselves" quagmire. However in the case of the gun debate, the "cause" language is used anyway despite asking for that quagmire, because it's more emotive.
They certainly still have the burden of demonstrating that somehow, but exclusively focusing on the particular near-synonym they used in the title seems uncharitable if you have read the first line of the article.