Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act Policy Analysis

Policy Analysis: The Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act

In 2004, the United States Congress enacted Public Law 108-355, also known as the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act (GLSMA). As the first law to address suicide prevention in the United States, the GLSMA approached suicide prevention as a serious public health concern (Goldston et al., 2010). The aim of the legislation was to “support the planning, implementation, and evaluation of organized activities involving statewide youth suicide prevention strategies, to authorize grants to institutions of higher education to reduce student mental and behavioral health problems, and for other purposes” (GLSMA of 2004, p. 6). Starting in 2005, the GLSMA program began distributing competitive federal

The year 2004 was particularly significant, because it was associated with the highest percentage increase in deaths by suicide among young adults since 1990 (Goldston et al., 2010). A combination of factors led to the proposal of the GLSMA. The social and political conditions in 2004 significantly influenced the development of the GLSMA. While economic conditions were considered during this analysis, THE economic state of the nation was not a major catalyst in the development of the

The bill was written by Sen. Gordon Smith in response to being directly impacted by the tragedy of suicide while holding office. His son Garrett Smith committed suicide at age 22 when he was a student at Utah Valley University. Thus, his father became a political stakeholder in the promotion of suicide prevention (Colburn, 2004). During the time leading up to the GLSMA, there was an increased amount of attention on the issue of suicide on a federal level. The program was primarily developed in response to President George W. Bush’s New Freedom Commission Report that was released in 2003, titled Transforming Mental Health Care in America. This report asserted that suicide was a major public health issue in the United States that was not receiving proper attention (Goldston et al., 2010). Another major influence on the development of the GLSMA was the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention (2001), which was a plan for public and private collaboration to reduce risk associated with suicide and suicidal behaviors, highlighting the suicide prevention needs of the adolescents and young adults (Goldston et al., 2010). This plan influenced an overall shift in ideology in terms of suicide prevention, which is described in a later section. Overall, due to the lack of suicide prevention initiatives in the United States, it seemed as though political entities were in