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Monday, March 28, 2011
Change in Law a Gateway to Gambling for Kids
By Dr. Guy C. Clark
Chairman, Stop Predatory Gambling New Mexico
According to public-health professionals across the U.S., serious gambling-related problems have emerged as the fastest-growing addiction among America's youths. Yet the state Legislature passed HB 394, which would change state law to allow college and high school fraternities to operate raffles to raise money for their organizations. The official analysis by the Legislative Education Study Committee indicates that this would include high school organizations such as National Honor Society, Boy Scouts of America, Future Farmers of America and Boys and Girls Clubs, etc. This bill would make the gambling epidemic among our children even worse by encouraging kids to believe that gambling is a way to raise money or to potentially earn money. Predatory gambling interests have spent millions of dollars trying to condition young people to the idea that gambling is acceptable behavior for themselves and others, and to desensitize them to the risk that is part and parcel of gambling activity.
That easy access to gambling creates more problem gamblers has been well documented. But less attention has been paid to the findings of government studies in New Hampshire, Canada, Australia and New Zealand that reveal more than 50 percent of gambling profits come from problem gamblers. Policies like HB 394 will only make it easier for predatory gambling interests to cultivate new addicts to replace the ones who have lost all their money.
In the last half of the 20th century it was possible for children to buy candy cigarettes at the local grocery store. Many nations banned their sale because many officials believed the candy cigarettes desensitize children, leading them to become smokers later in life. In 2010, the FDA finally banned the sale of candy cigarettes in the U.S. for that reason. Are "high school fraternity" raffles to be the "candy cigarettes" of the gambling industry?
It is illegal for young people to purchase cigarettes, as it is for them to participate in the most common forms of gambling. Would the state like to encourage high school fraternities to sell cigarettes to support their activities? Young people already participate in too many forms of risky behavior. Should the state encourage young people to accept and promote another form of risky behavior?
Gov. Martinez should veto HB 394.
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