[ToucanLoucan]

I find it interesting that everyone is assuming I want gambling made illegal or something, when I said nothing of the sort. The comment I replied to postulates that gambling is fine because it's the person's choice. I replied asking if that was necessarily true given all of what we have learned and are learning about addiction, drawing comparisons to substances/behaviors, illicit and otherwise, that are known to be addictive. And everyone thinks I'm some moral crusader who wants to ban everything.

I don't, FWIW. I just think these questions are important and the answers are more complicated than "everyone can and should do whatever they want" or "everyone has to eat nothing but corn flakes and eschew all temptations in life for Jesus."

Though, I will say that I find it off-putting how many states in my Untied States are apparently totally fine with juicing their budgets with the profits of gambling enterprises. Like... we can definitely have gambling, but it feels exploitative that the state itself is raising money, even if that money is for public services, off the backs of known-to-be-addictive products.