About 790,000 people attempt suicide annually, and in 2002, 31,655 of them were successful. Statistics like these are what U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., a BYU alumnus, is determined to change.

Smith spoke Monday, Oct. 23, 2006, at UVSC and focused his speech on suicide prevention and awareness.

According to the United Way, suicide is responsible for 12.7 percent of deaths for 15 to 24-year-olds. Smith had first-hand experience with this three years ago when his son, Garrett, committed suicide while attending UVSC.

Smith said he thinks a big part of the suicide problem is the fact that many Americans do not think of mental health as a legitimate health problem.

"I have come to realize since Garrett's death that mental health must stop being a subordinate category of medicine," Smith said. "If you have physical health but you don't have mental health, you don't have health."

Smith also noted that many members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints tend to put the issue of suicide in the corner and do not understand the reality of the problem.

"The general authorities are wrestling with how to better deal with this very legitimate issue," Smith said. "There is a very real, very keen realization on the part of the general authorities that psychosomatic illnesses rob people of their agency, but at the same time they have a responsibility to teach the highest standard and encourage us all to be better."

Smith said his experiences have taught him many things about how to deal with mental illness, and he urges church members to not put the issue of suicide and mental illness on the backburner.

"What the LDS community needs to understand is that we are commanded to be perfect but none of us are," he said. "Some of us have conditions that are physical limitations while others have mental disabilities and we have to be tolerant of those."

Smith also said church members need to remember Paul's admonition to have faith, hope and charity when it comes to the issue of suicide and mental illness.

"We all know what faith is, but few of us ever focus on hope," he said. "What I have learned from my son's situation was that his essential lack was a lack of hope. And without hope, life is very painful."

Shortly after his son's death, Smith created the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Bill, which gives support and funding to suicide prevention and awareness programs on several levels. The first is on the high school level and provides teen-screen programs so mental health problems can be detected early.

The college-level programs provide early suicide intervention and support in colleges and universities all over the country.

The third level is in Native American reservations, where youth suicide rates are higher than anywhere else, according to the Suicide Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). President George W. Bush signed the bill into law in 2004, and states have recently begun to receive supporting grants from SAMHSA. Smith's home state of Oregon received $400,000 alone this April.

SAMHSA recently awarded UVSC a grant that will enable the college to hire a suicide prevention and awareness director who will educate faculty, staff and students about warning signs of suicide and how to get help for friends or family members in need.

Smith said the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act has had tremendous support in both the government and local communities all over the country.

"There's hardly a week that goes by that I don't get a letter from some parent or agency recounting how some human life has been saved and help, hope and healing has been restored," Smith said.

Copyright Brigham Young University 23 Oct 2006