Advocacy Archive
More Travels Down Tobacco Road
May 21, 1998
Dear Colleague:
It's the start of the 10th anniversary American Psychological Society convention. You'd think Congress would want to take a break to celebrate with us. But nooooo. Still, they may have given us a great birthday present. By once again working with (and taking a lead from) the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, a compromise may have been worked out between Senators Jeffords (R-VT), Mack (R-FL), Harkin (D-IA), and McCain (R-AZ), on how much of a $2.5 billion per year National Institutes of Health (NIH) research fund coming out of the enormous tobacco legislative package now being debated on the Senate floor should be devoted to basic and applied behavioral research aspects of smoking. The short answer? Plenty.
Earlier this month, tobacco legislation coming out of the Senate Commerce Committee created two streams of research money. Two-thirds of the $2.5 billion would have gone to general NIH research topics loosely linked to tobacco; one-third would have gone to social and behavioral research linked to tobacco. Many groups and NIH strongly protested that the link to tobacco was too constraining for NIH. You never know, they said, where tobacco-related results are going to come from. Why limit it to tobacco-related research? (Remember that the next time NIMH tells you to link your research proposal more closely to a mental illness. But you never know.... OK, maybe you better not.) The protests won, and the bill that was passed out of the Commerce committee was changed before it hit the Senate floor. No tobacco-linked mandate and no-specific set-aside for behavior. We weren't too bad off, though, since the importance of behavioral research was mentioned throughout the bill and its explanatory report.
Now we are even better off. Not only is behavior specifically listed in that part of the $2.5 billion that would go for general NIH research (remember, this is on top of the current $13+ billion budget for NIH), but a friendly amendment is in the offing from Sen Jeffords to mandate that first 5 percent and over time 15 percent of this yearly $2.5 billion shall be devoted to basic and applied behavioral research more closely linked to preventing the use of tobacco in kids. What is more, the language of the amendment says that this money should not be used to supplant what NIH is already doing. And, while NIH would of course be able and encouraged to support cooperative biological and behavioral links to tobacco use, the biological portion of those links wouldn't count against the behavioral pot of money. The exact process teasing out what counts will be coordinated through the NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research.
Let's list the usual qualifications: The entire tobacco legislative package has a long way to go and not much time to go there. It probably won't be passed by the Senate until after a Memorial Day holiday week B if then. There are lots of more controversial issues than this one. Plus, the House of Representatives has given few clues on what will happen there. Finally, the clock keeps ticking toward adjournment for the year with only something like 6x legislative days left before the November elections.
Oh, the hell with qualifications. If everything goes well, there might be $375 million more per year in new behavioral research aimed at stemming one of the most important public health problems of the century. That's not a birthday present just for APS. Its one for the country.
Best, Alan