It appears that Friday; state leaders broke the deadlock over slot machines at racetracks, setting the stage for finalization of the stalled biennium budget early this week. The agreement will have the Governor authorize the “video lottery terminals” through an executive order with the House and Senate passing legislative language to provide legal support. With this news you may have thought your job was over—–not quite! As advocates we need to give one last big push, and now we have one additional issue to address. As we have been telling you the last several days, we have heard that all your advocacy has made an impact on restoring funding for mental health, but we have not heard the same on alcohol and other drug addiction funding, so now we need to really hit this hard. We need to argue once they approve gaming this will increase gambling addiction in Ohio just like alcohol and other drug addiction has increased in this bad economic time. We need to let the Governor and legislative leaders know that based on the proposed cuts to ODADAS there is no where near enough funding to address the increases we will see in addictions with seven new race track “racinos”. So our message is, as they work on approving legislation, 1or 2% of all video gaming should be set aside to fund addiction services through ODADAS.

SO LET’S MAKE ONE LAST REALLY BIG ADVOCACY PUSH! Following are our suggested messages.

1. DO NOT LET ONE MORE OHIOAN DIE A NEEDLESS DEATH!

2. Ensure adequate funding for ODADAS line item 401 and addiction services. In addition to ODADAS already being underfunded, with video gaming we will see an increase in all addictions. You can provide vitally needed dollars to ODADAS by taking 1-2% of all video gaming profits to fund addiction services through ODADAS.

3. Ensure that ODMH 505 and 408 line items are fully funded to make sure that mentally ill Ohioans receive the necessary services.

PLEASE today, first thing call and email the Governor and the following legislators with these messages. We must do everything possible to see to it that these vital alcohol, drug addiction and mental health services are funded!