Quinn’s  budget would cut all addiction treatment funding for non-Medicaid clients and all addiction prevention funding in general, a spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Human Services said.

Sara Howe, CEO of the Illinois Alcoholism and Drug Dependence Association, estimates that 80 percent of the 69,000 people treated for addiction are not covered by Medicaid.

In the House, a separate plan, which passed 83-25 more than two weeks ago, would cut treatment funding by just 4.4 percent. Prevention services, eliminated in the governor’s budget, would be cut just 20 percent. the Senate has its own version, which, in defiance of the governor’s plan, offers a moderate funding increase.

Advocates believe that Quinn’s budget would decimate substance abuse services throughout the state.

The Illinois Alcoholism and Drug Dependence Association estimates 55,830 clients – 80 percent – will go without care and more than 1,500 treatment counselors will lose their jobs.

Anthony Cole, vice president of the Haymarket Center, said, “It’d be horrific, man, and the gangs would see at as a boon. They’d have more clients than ever.”

In recent years the center, one of Chicago’s largest providers of substance abuse treatment, has cut two detox programs and one residential program for women, all the while freezing staff salaries.  

Cole, who has worked in the field for more than 25 years, said if Quinn’s budget passes Haymarket Center would have to cut its program almost in half and turn away more than 7,000 clients a year. the budget cuts would also mean a loss in federal grants that match state funding dollar-for-dollar based on a program’s efficacy.

Quinn has argued that Illinois simply doesn’t have the money.

In January, he started his term with a $15 billion budget deficit, one of the worst in the nation.

Some are skeptical that Quinn’s solutions are correct.

The problem, said Sara Howe of the Alcoholism and Drug Dependence Association, is that the state is shifting the cost down the line, from relatively low-cost areas such as treatment and prevention to high-cost areas such as health care, corrections and homelessness services.

Kathleen Kane-Willis, who founded the Illinois Consortium on Drug Policy, agreed. “We’ll see people flooding emergency rooms, a lot more arrests and a public health crisis.”

Chicago, she said, has particularly high heroin use.

Heroin is the second most common reason people enter public treatment for substance abuse, behind alcohol, in the Chicago Metropolitan area. Chicago also had the largest number of users admitted to emergency rooms, 50 percent higher than new York City’s.  

Howe and Cole remain cautiously optimistic as they wait to see what type of bill the legislators end up sending to Quinn.

“We’re just saying we’ve taken our fair share and then some, quite a bit more,” Howe said. “You’re going to pay for it in much more costly areas. You’re not going to be able to walk away from the problem.”