As I See It

MISSOURI'S HIGH STAKES GAMBLE WITH MENTAL HEALTH

All Missourians should be alarmed by Gov. Bob Holden's 2003 budget proposal
to fund mental health and substance abuse services using the Rainy Day Fund.

Faced with a moral dilemma in the budget process, the governor had good
intentions. However, it is high-stakes gambling to believe that legislators
will provide the two-thirds votes necessary to salvage mental health services.

An assault on mental health would have many profound and unintended
impacts. Missouri's mental health safety net would be virtually dismantled.
About 75 percent of Missouri's public substance-abuse treatment centers
would close. The community mental health centers that survive any cuts
would be unable to respond to 36,831 Missouri adults and children who will
request services.

Missouri would also become ineligible for an additional $9,796,656 in
federal funds, a cruel and final blow to the current delivery system.

Public safety is also at stake. Homelessness, domestic violence, child
abuse and neglect, crime, and emergency room visits would increase.
Taxpayers would bear the expense of housing nonviolent drug offenders who
otherwise could be served in less costly treatment programs. Costs would be
shifted to law enforcers, as they intervene -- often without adequate
training -- with those individuals who are dangerous to themselves and others.

Without treatment, many at-risk youths would end up in the juvenile justice
system, residential institutions or foster care. Any cost savings from
mental health service reductions would evaporate quickly beneath the burden
of these human service demands.

Policy-makers often suffer from a lack of historical perspective. Surely
they must remember why the 1963 Community Mental Health Centers Act was
established.

Prior to the availability of publicly funded, community-based treatment,
mental-health treatment services could be accessed only by the affluent.

Mentally ill citizens languished in costly but substandard institutions,
jails and prisons.

Many parents who suffered from an untreated mental health or substance
abuse problem were forced to relinquish parental custody to the state.

Sadly, the average Missouri voter does not recognize that mental health
does matter. The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks have traumatized the American
psyche.

Weakened family, spiritual and community institutions leave our youth
vulnerable to substance abuse, violence and behavioral problems. And
depression, the common cold of mental health, is a frequent complication of
heart attack, cancer, stroke and other American maladies.

Yet because of the stigma, many of us view mental health and substance
abuse as "not my problem."

As taxpayers and compassionate citizens, mental health is our problem. We
must take action now to assure that the $92 million needed to preserve the
mental health safety net is restored.