Indiana House Speaker vows to restore gambling addition program funding

Sunday, May 28, 2000 | 9:51 a.m.

"I don't agree with what they've done," Gregg, D-Sandborn, said Friday. "And come the session time, I'll get it back."

Last week, the state's Family and Social Services Administration announced that it was taking the $400,000 out of a fund to help treat gambling addiction and using it instead to pay for unannounced inspections of tobacco retailers.

Those inspections had been paid for by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, but the Supreme Court ruled recently Congress had never given the agency authority to regulate tobacco.

As a result, the FDA canceled anti-tobacco money to the states, costing Indiana $384,000 for its program.

Andrew Stoner, a spokesman for the social services agency, said it hopes next year to pay for the retail inspections with money from the state's share of the national tobacco settlement.

But that money won't be available in time to pay for this year's inspection program, Stoner said.

The gambling assistance fund now contains about $2 million in unallocated money, Stoner said, so it makes sense to use part of the surplus for the tobacco inspection program.

Gregg disagrees, saying more should be spent to combat gambling addiction. He said the state should have found another source of money for the tobacco inspection program.

Questions about the decision will likely come up during legislative committee meetings this summer and next year's General Assembly, Gregg said