Lottery not the answer

March 17, 2007 12:25 am

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Jean Kelly’s letter, (“Mississippi needs a lottery,” March 10, 2007) in last Saturday’s Meridian Star was one of two letters to the editor in that edition that touched on the subject of “addiction.”
The letter by Mike Sawyer dealt with tobacco addiction and Ms. Kelly’s subject was gambling addiction for she recommends a state lottery as an answer to all our financial problems.
Many readers will remember that legalized liquor was going to end all financial woes of our schools and governmental agencies. It did not happen. Now we have gambling houses (Oh, excuse me, Gaming Establishments), first on the coast and then right in our own back yard in a small Bible Belt town call Philadelphia. Surely now, this should be the panacea for the schools of this entire area because — just look at the millions in taxes “gaming” will bring.
Maybe that’s the reason the Meridian School System is voting on a $19 million school bond issue in a few days. No, liquor was not the answer. Gambling houses are not the answer. And a state lottery is not the answer.
On the subject of gambling addiction and its resulting devastation on marriages and families, that has been a best kept secret. However, recent reports in both newspaper columns and on television are beginning to reveal a sad and disturbing picture brought on by out-of-control gambling.
Jean Kelly said in her letter, referring to the $370 million jackpot recently won by a few people, “Money like that changes people’s lives.” She is certainly right about that. Apparently, it does change people’s lives.
This past Friday on “Good Morning America” there was a report by Ryan Owens on how it changed some lives ... four people (four families) in particular.
Kenneth and Connie Parker won a $25 million dollar jackpot. Their sixteen year marriage disintegrated just months after winning. Jeffrey Dampier who won $27 million in a lottery was kidnapped and murdered by his own sister-in-law in a desperate attempt to cash in on the winnings. In the year 2002 Jack Whitaker won what was to be the largest payout in U.S. history.
His granddaughter, who was showered with hundreds of thousands of dollars by her loving grandfather at age 22, died of a drug overdose. The grandmother, on Good Morning America wailed, “Oh, if I had known what those winnings was going to do to my family, I would have torn that ticket up!”
Now please, I know these are extreme cases and not everybody who would buy a two dollar lottery ticket at Super Stop will suffer such consequences, but according to psychologist Dr. Steve Danish who was interviewed on the program, gambling addiction is a reality and is a constant danger when, as he put it, “A windfall becomes a freefall!” The hope and dream of “winning it big” more times than not turns in to the reality of “losing it all”. The hope of winning a million, to so many people, Dr. Danish says, “becomes much more important than any marriage, family or any kind of relationship with people and that is a perfect picture, a perfect definition of gambling addiction.”
Is the lottery a “win-win situation for everyone” as Ms. Kelly says it is? I kinda doubt it.

Arlis Nichols
Enterprise