By Rob Moritz
Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK — Nearly 70 percent of Arkansas voters would support raising taxes on beer, wine and liquor to provide more drug and alcohol treatment programs to addicts, according to a poll released Monday.
Sen. Hank Wilkins, D-Pine Bluff, said he would file legislation to raise liquor taxes in 2011 — similar to a bill he filed this year that never made it out of a Senate committee — if he is re-elected to the Legislature next year. The term-limited senator, who previously served one House term, is eligible to serve two more House terms under Arkansas’ term limits law.
“These poll numbers are really encouraging,” Wilkins said.
Monday’s poll, released by the state chapter of the Closing the Addiction Treatment Gap program run by the private Open Society Institute, found that 50 percent of voters would strongly support a tax increase, and 19 percent would somewhat support a tax hike. Twenty-two percent of respondents said they would strongly oppose such an increase.
“It’s time for us to change how we treat this health problem,” Cynthia Crone, project director for Arkansas’ Closing the Addiction Treatment effort, said during a news conference.
Crone is also director of Family Treatment Consultation at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Partners for Inclusive Communities.
Opinion Research and Associates, Inc. of Little Rock surveyed 400 registered voters by telephone May 18-21. The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 5 percent.
The survey also found that nearly 90 percent of voters believe drug addiction in Arkansas is a moderate or serious problem.
“The results of this poll indicate that Arkansans realize drug and alcohol addiction are serious issues and that more resources are needed to address them,” said pollster Ernie Oakleaf, founder of Opinion Research Associates.
Rep. Tim Summers, R-Bentonville, executive director of Decision Point Treatment Center in Northwest Arkansas, spoke during the news conference about the need for additional funding but told reporters later that he had not decided whether he would support a tax increase.
“At this point we’re looking at what different options are out there,” Summers said, adding he supported Wilkins’ proposed tax earlier this year.
Wilkins proposal would have generated an estimated $27 million annually for treatment and prevention programs by imposing a new 5 percent excise tax on sales of beer, wine and liquor.
Summers said Monday nearly 80 percent of the inmates in state custody were convicted of drug or drug-related crimes, and that drug treatment programs do work.
Crystal Bush, 32, a recovering drug addict who completed a treatment program in Little Rock and now works as a dietitian at a hospital, said she had been arrested several times and was pregnant and facing a probation revocation hearing for manufacturing methamphetamine when she entered a treatment program at UAMS.
“Had I been given the opportunity to go to treatment years before I probably would have never (been a part of) this,” Bush, who grew up in Pine Bluff, said at the news conference.
Wilkins said he hopes “my colleagues will see (the poll) and recognize that the people of Arkansas really want us to invest in making all of our communities better by providing prevention and intervention opportunities for people addicted to drugs and alcohol.”
