On Tuesday Pennsylvania celebrates the second anniversary of its Declaration of Dependence -- on gambling revenues to fund racetracks, arenas, airports, law enforcement, a brand-new and comically unproductive control board and a little bit of tax reduction.

		Bruce Barron is president of No Dice, a Pittsburgh-area organization opposing the expansion of legalized gambling in Pennsylvania.

What great progress we have seen in these two years:

The state Gaming Control Board has compiled a higher arrest rate than most halfway houses, reminding us how hard it is to attract quality characters to this notorious sector.

The Mohegan Indians, purchasers of Pocono Downs, canceled an employment fair and began muttering about a possible pullout amid a dispute about its anticipated local tax rate.

Penn National and MTR Gaming, who own gambling facilities in both Pennsylvania and West Virginia, used the onset of slots in Pennsylvania as an excuse to call for legalization of table games in West Virginia. State Democratic leaders Mike Veon and Bill DeWeese graciously anticipated their next move by calling for table games in Pennsylvania.

The Pennsylvania Lottery, bracing for a spike in gambling addiction rates while it gears up for competition from casinos, began placing a compulsive gambler hotline on its billboards, in a print size almost big enough to read.

State Sen. Vince Fumo, a gambling supporter, proposed an increase in the already-high casino tax rate to fund law enforcement activities.

Financial analysts, observing that leading Philadelphia-area casino applicants like Harrah's and Trump also have Atlantic City properties, predicted that they would use a Philly casino to recruit new gamblers and then lure them to New Jersey where the tax rate is far lower and the profits higher.

The Gaming Control Board wrangled for nearly a year over the momentous question of whether to let applicants for the newly invented job category of slot machine suppliers cover the whole state or only half. This seemingly puny dispute carried great importance because the slots supplier concept appears to be an innovative way to funnel lucrative gambling profits to the well-connected. (Exhibit A: Jim Roddey, whose distinguished career trajectory may take him from civic leader to county chief executive to slots middleman.)

Respected Hill District leader and former gambling opponent James Simms became a spokesman for the Penguins/Isle of Capri casino proposal. The Rev. Simms figured that if a casino is coming anyhow he should at least maximize its benefit to his community. He now spends his time assuring the public that his new bosses do not use money as an enticement to win people over.

Meanwhile, a different kind of progress has been sighted elsewhere in the state. Massive popular opposition has caused Boyd Gaming to virtually abandon its Montgomery County casino proposal, torpedoed a proposal in Lancaster and left Gettysburg's brave applicant severely wounded.

Most impressively, neighborhood opponents of Philadelphia's five casino proposals, instead of playing the NIMBY (not in my backyard, but OK in your backyard) game and becoming pitted against each other, have united as the CasinoFree Philadelphia coalition and rallied against placing a casino anywhere in their city.

Why nothing similar in Pittsburgh? Mainly it's because the Penguins have skillfully framed the issue as a choice between a casino and no hockey team. But significant opposition has come from such voices as the Steelers and Duquesne University. And a Hill District task force found that a strong majority of residents opposed a casino in their community.

Moreover, the absence of casino support from economic development circles is deafening. No one trumpets a Pittsburgh or Meadows casino as a regional economic boon any more -- only as a way for government to take our money with one hand and give some of it back with the other.

This realization parallels what happened two months ago in Buffalo, where the Seneca Indians want to build a casino. Their promises to attract tourism and spur development sounded melodious until someone discovered that the Senecas were telling the Securities and Exchange Commission a different story. In their SEC filing the Senecas admitted that the Buffalo casino would feast heavily off local patrons, transferring wealth from Buffalo's already hamstrung economy into the economy of a sovereign Indian nation.

Within one week of this discovery, Buffalo's mayor expressed skepticism about granting tax incentives to the Senecas, the Buffalo Sabres' owner announced his commitment to fighting the casino, and the county executive said he would join a lawsuit seeking to overturn the casino's approval.

Whether our casino operator is Millennium Gaming (the new Meadows owner), Don Barden, Isle of Capri or Harrah's, the economic impact in Pittsburgh will be no better. And no applicant has proposed meaningful steps to avert the sharp rise in local gambling addiction that always accompanies a new casino market.

C. S. Lewis of "Narnia" fame once observed that, when one has gone down a wrong path, the only way to make true progress is to turn around. It is not too late for us to turn around -- to repeal Pennsylvania's slots law before a casino permanently transforms Pittsburgh for the worse.