Quote of the Week

Michael Osborne, the executive director of Baltimore's Harbour Pointe, the oldest and one of the only residential treatment facilities in the country solely dedicated to treating compulsive gamblers, and a gambling addict himself: “And although Osborne doesn't take a position on the November slots referendum, when asked what the addition of 15,000 legalized gambling devices across Maryland will mean if approved, he doesn't equivocate. ‘The cost of more gambling is that domestic violence will go up, crime will go up, prostitution will go up, foreclosures will go up, bankruptcy will go up. And suicide will go up,’ says Osborne, who once considered taking his life. ‘Gambling addiction suicide rates are much higher than for alcoholism and drug addiction.’” [Baltimore Magazine, July 2008]