NIH spent $480,500 to text message drunks

By Elizabeth Harrington | Washington Free Beacon

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has spent nearly half a million dollars text messaging alcoholics to encourage them to stop drinking.

Dr. Frederick Muench, an assistant professor in Columbia University’s psychiatry department, is leading the $480,500 study aimed to reduce “problem drinking.”

“The proposed development study entitled, Tailored Mobile Text Messaging to Reduce Problem Drinking is designed to develop and test a tailored adaptive text messaging/short message service (SMS) intervention for individuals interested in stopping or reducing their alcool [sic] consumption,” the grant reads.

The project hypothesizes that cell phones offer “brief intervention opportunities,” allowing researchers to text a drunk while they are at the bar.

at the Washington Free Beacon.