‘Free’ gambling money, a costly gift for players

The following editorial is taken from Carolina Coast Online:

“Bewre of Greeks bearing gifts” is a famous phrase from the “Aeneid,” the epic poem about the fall of the ancient city of Troy. It certainly applies today as gambling companies begin their onslaught of promotions offering “free money” to begin online sports betting. But gamblers beware, there is more at play.

As anyone with an ounce of common sense knows, there’s nothing free in life, especially money. There is a cost and in this case, as new North Carolina gamblers line up to play with the “house money,” the cost is the gambler’s personal profile along with enticements to gamble again and again, with the possibility of addiction.

Under the headline, “Place Your Bets. Sports betting officially becomes legal in NC” the AP announced that “Anyone 21 or older holding an account with a licensed operator can use their phone or electronic device to place sports wagers starting at noon on March 11.” What the AP story failed to explain, a fact that does warrant concern, is how do the gambling companies know the age of the user. Can the computer or phone really determine the gambler’s age?

Ads are running in TV sports programs, major news outlets and particularly college campuses, home of the industry’s primary target- college-age men, offering upwards to $1,000 of “free money” to place bets on a variety of games to include in-state college sports.

Steve Wiseman, sports reporter for the Durham Herald Sun, opined that the allowance of betting on in-state college sports will create greater pressures and even vitriol for the athletes. He explained that “lawmakers opted not to include any restrictions on college sports…(which) makes financial sense given the popularity of college athletics in the state that’s long been the ACC’s home base. But it means that schools are tasked with doing all they can to protect their athletes from physical and mental health standpoints, and prevent any betting scandals from engulfing their teams.”

At the same time Wiseman’s story appeared in the Raleigh News & Observer, Luke DeCock, sports columnist, offered advice to would-be gamblers on how to use the “free” money in a frontpage article. He described himself as an “experienced” gambler, explaining that he doesn’t bet on sports for professional and ethical reasons, but that he has dabbled in betting on horses, golf, craps, and blackjack. He also acknowledged, but again only briefly, the potential addictive nature of gambling.

“As any competent heroin dealer knows, the whole point of these bonus offers is to get people hooked – imagine if it was legal to hand out free booze and cigarettes- but that is the compromise we’ve become willing to accept in this state, because this gambling was happening anyway, in darker shadows, and we might as well benefit from it.”

There is so much to unpack with DeCock’s opening remarks that it defies the space allotted. But we’ll try, taking the points from the bottom up starting with the benefit of taxing gambling.

That’s not necessarily a bad idea as it applies to an age-old concept of taxing the vices and incentivizing the virtues. And this is what the legislature and Governor Cooper, who signed H.B. 347, are interested in doing. But they have done so with very little control over the marketing of the gaming industry, to include allowing sports betting on in-state college sports, which is prohibited in other states that have endorsed online sports gambling.

As for taking betting out of the shadows, DeCock obviously supports removing the stigma of doing something that is at the very least questionable, if not outright illegal. Social stigma is not a bad thing. It promotes a reason to pause before making stupid and most likely dangerous decisions. As has been proven, addictive gambling, particularly now that it is conveniently available online, can result in harmful behavior, especially when gambling debts become unmanageable.

Allison Drain, a coordinator with the NC Problem Gambling Program told NC Health News that younger college-age males are among the population expected to show an uptick in problem gambling despite many of them being younger than 21. Noting that gambling disorder is similar to substance abuse disorder, Drain also stated, “the earlier that you engage in the activity, the greater the chances are of you becoming addicted to it later in life because it deals with that brain structure and development.”

The concept of giving a product or service away, including money, to build habits and dependence is not new. The cigarette manufacturers proved this in both World Wars. In both wars the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines on the front lines were issued three or four cigarettes with their rations, with the purpose of providing a calming activity in the midst of terrible circumstances.

There is good reason to believe the nicotine in these free cigarettes provided a calming effect, but they also strengthened the habit of cigarette smoking, which they continued once the wars ended. Faced with the growing evidence of the negative health impacts of smoking, the Department of Defense in 1976 finally halted the distribution of Camel, Chesterfield, Old Gold and Lucky Strike cigarettes in military ration kits.

In 1971, recognizing the health risks of cigarette smoking, the federal government banned the advertising of cigarettes on television and radio or in magazine publications focused on audiences under age 21. The restrictions on advertising also included universities, colleges and schools that produce theatrical or sports events.

The addictive nature of gambling, as with smoking, should also be a concern for the state and its policy makers. Just as with cigarettes, it is impossible to outlaw an activity that mature adults wish to engage in, no matter that it is harmful to the user. That is a personal choice made by adults.

The same argument holds true for gambling. It is a natural human activity, some would say weakness, but mankind is by nature a risk-taker. That proclivity to take risks and dares is why mankind continues to progress. But at the same time caution is needed in developing and honing that risk nature which can best be done by tailoring the messages, and in some instances prohibiting promotions, in cases where they can do the most harm.

The nation took action to address the addictive nature of cigarettes, so too the state should reassess its responsibilities with the potential of gambling addiction as well.

Stating The Obvious

Posting this article is going to get me in trouble with some of my friends who believe that recreational drug use is no big deal, but it’s time to look at the bigger picture.

On Sunday, The Western Journal reported:

Not only did last week see the election of a libertarian fan of former President Donald Trump to the presidency of Argentina, another new South American leader much closer to the border just overturned a policy in his own country that U.S. leftists have been pushing for years.

Maybe progressives can learn something from the neighbors to the south.

On Friday, according to Agence France-Presse, Ecuadorean President Daniel Noboa dumped a policy of decriminalizing possession of small amounts of drugs, declaring that it  “encourages micro-trafficking in schools and creates a whole generation of addicted children.”

It applies to “up to 10 grams of marijuana, 2 grams of cocaine paste, 1 gram of cocaine, 0.10 grams of heroin, and 0.04 grams of amphetamine” for personal use, according to the Washington Examiner.

The policy was instituted a decade ago by the country’s then-president, socialist Rafael Correa, according to AFP.

The article notes what happened when Oregon decriminalized drugs:

The idea was, ostensibly, to”transform addiction by minimizing penalties for drug use and investing instead in recovery,” the Post reported.

But in a result that should have surprised literally no one with any sense, things haven’t worked out quite that way. Drug use has grown, gotten worse, and gotten more deadly.

As the Post (The Washington Post) reported, “even top Democratic lawmakers who backed the law, which will likely dominate the upcoming legislative session, say they’re now open to revisiting it after the biggest increase in synthetic opioid deaths among states that have reported their numbers.”

Even the leftist publication The Atlantic has been compelled to report the results of Oregon’s experiment as a failure.

A population that has clear mental facilities will always result in a better society.

But It Looked Really Good On Paper

On Monday, Hot Air posted an article about Measure 110, passed in Oregon in 2020. The law decriminalized the possession and use of small quantities of virtually all hard drugs, including heroin, fentanyl, and methamphetamines. The idea of the law was to change the focus from jailtime to rehabilitation.

The article reports:

The results of this move have been spectacular, provided you were hoping for it to be spectacularly bad. Particularly in cities like Portland, citizens are unable to walk the streets without tripping over addicts who are shooting up or passed out on the sidewalk. This reality has an increasing number of people rethinking the policy and talk of repealing Measure 110 is growing. (Associated Press)

…Decriminalization has now been attempted in multiple American cities and it has failed every single time. There isn’t one place you can point to where decriminalization has resulted in fewer overdose deaths and more people recovering in treatment programs. The opposite is what has happened.

Republicans in Oregon are reportedly pushing the Governor to call a special session to repeal the measure and criminalize both possession and public drug use. They are also asking for rehabilitation treatment to be mandatory instead of voluntary as it is now. The second part of that proposal is probably doomed to failure, however. It’s almost impossible to force someone into an addiction treatment program if they aren’t ready to seek help for themselves. If you do that, they’ll probably just be biding their time until they are released and can go search for their next fix.

Every parent knows that it is easier to ignore your child’s bad behavior than to deal with it. However, at some point you have to deal with it and the sooner you deal with it, the easier it will be. Somehow our ‘public servants’ have never grasped this concept.

The article concludes:

This was always predictable, or at least it should have been. When you remove the disincentive for a particular behavior and make it easier to engage in that behavior, you’re going to wind up with more of it. Given the addictive nature of the drugs in question, once the line has been crossed it’s very difficult to walk it back. The rise in homelessness was also a predictable result. If people with jobs become addicted to opioids, their performance at work will begin to go downhill. When they eventually lose their jobs, they have little else to occupy their time beyond looking to score drugs. Unable to pay the rent, they eventually wind up out in the street. This really shouldn’t be confusing to any of these politicians. The only question now is whether they can find the intestinal fortitude to admit their error and try to put the state back on an even keel.

Let’s learn from out mistakes!

 

 

The Damage That Was Done

Jeffrey Epstein is dead and Ghislaine Maxwell is spending her time in a luxury prison in Florida. But let’s not forget the damage they did to the young girls they trafficked.

On October 17, 2023, there was a news story in USA Today that didn’t get a lot of coverage by the mainstream media.

The article reported:

One of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims who testified against Ghislaine Maxwell in her trial for sex-trafficking minors has died of an accidental overdose, authorities said.

Carolyn Andriano, 36, was found dead in a hotel room in West Palm Beach, Florida, on May 23, according to West Palm Beach Police Department spokesperson Mike Jachles. Her death wasn’t made public until this week.

Andriano died an overdose of methadone, fentanyl and alprazolam, Jachles said. She testified in 2021 that she had been addicted to “pain pills and cocaine” and that she had taken them “to block out” Epstein’s sexual abuse. For four years, Epstein had abused her at his Palm Beach mansion, starting in 2001 when she was 14, she said.

Andriano lived in Wellington at the time of her death and leaves behind her husband, John Pitts Jr., five children and her mother, Dorothy Groenert. She is the second Epstein survivor known to suffer a fatal overdose in Palm Beach County.

Leigh Skye Patrick, 29, was also found dead in a West Palm Beach hotel room in 2017. Patrick’s twin sister blamed her struggles with drugs on Epstein.

She “suffered tremendously and it started with Epstein,” Selby Patrick told the Daily Mail in 2019. “She struggled with addiction since the time she met that guy.”

Epstein’s case had drawn worldwide attention. The 66-year-old investment banker was known for his powerful connections, including Prince Andrew of the United Kingdom and former presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump.

That last sentence is extremely misleading–Epstein was barred from Mar-a-Lago as soon as President Trump figured out what he was about. The inclusion of President Trump is an effort to tie him to the crimes of Epstein.

The damage that was done by Epstein and Maxwell is incalculable. I am not against the death penalty for anyone involved in child trafficking. Child trafficking does include those under the age of 18.

The Homeless Are A Danger To Themselves And To The Rest Of Us

The once beautiful streets of San Francisco are now littered with needles and human waste. The homeless commit crimes to support various drug habits. Diseases that we have not seen in America for decades are appearing in the community. Who knows how the coronavirus will impact these people. The city does not seem to be able to deal with the problem. Where do you start?

On Tuesday The City Journal posted an article about the homelessness problem. The article reminds us that new data undermines the idea that homelessness is the result of high rents and lack of economic opportunity.

The article reports:

But new data are undermining this narrative. As residents of West Coast cities witness the disorder associated with homeless encampments, they have found it harder to accept the progressive consensus—especially in the context of the coronavirus epidemic, which has all Americans worried about contagion. An emerging body of evidence confirms what people see plainly on the streets: homelessness is deeply connected to addiction, mental illness, and crime.

Homeless advocates argue that substance abuse is a small contributor to the problem, and that no more than 20 percent of the homeless population abuses drugs. Last year, when I suggested that homelessness is primarily an addiction crisis—citing Seattle and King County data that suggested half of homeless individuals suffered from opioid addiction—activists denounced me on social media and wrote letters to the editor demanding a retraction. But according to a recent Los Angeles Times investigation, 46 percent of the homeless and 75 percent of the unsheltered homeless have a substance-abuse disorder—more than three times higher than official estimates from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.

In the interest of preventing “stigmatization,” progressives downplay the connection between schizophrenia, severe bipolar disorder, and homelessness. In general, cities have claimed that roughly 25 percent to 39 percent of the homeless suffer from mental-health disorders. As new data from the California Policy Lab show, it’s likely that 50 percent of the homeless and 78 percent of the unsheltered homeless have a serious mental health condition. For residents of cities like San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle, this should come as no surprise. The people smashing up property and yelling in the streets are clearly suffering from mental illness. The numbers confirm the ground-level reality.

The article concludes:

Residents in the most progressive enclaves of West Coast cities have quietly begun to demand policy changes to address the obvious causes of the homelessness crisis. In San Francisco, city leaders have launched a new initiative to focus on the 4,000 individuals who suffer from the “perilous trifecta” of homelessness, addiction, and mental illness. Mayor London Breed has spoken frankly about the human causes of homelessness, and Anton Nigusse Bland, a physician and director of mental health reform for the city, has pledged to “develop a strategic approach to mental health and substance use services for people experiencing homelessness in San Francisco.”

This is a small but promising step. Especially now, with the threat of an infectious disease becoming a national crisis, it is imperative that city leaders come to grips with the dangers of letting people live in encampments that lack even rudimentary sanitation. We can only hope that this new awareness extends to other cities. For now, more than 100,000 people in California, Oregon, and Washington continue to languish in the streets.

Rhode Island has put in place a program that has been successful in dealing with the problem of homelessness. The problem includes counseling, drug rehabilitation, reintegration into the community and reintegration into family units. The program is a public-private partnership that has been successful in getting many of the homeless reintegrated into society. Similar programs need to be instituted on the west coast. It is a disgrace that America has not done more to help those among us living on the street. Throwing money at the problem or ignoring it is not the answer. It takes a commitment to helping the homeless deal with the mental problems that have resulted in their living on the street.

This Has Happened Before

KOMO News in Washington state reported yesterday that the number of Washington state drivers involved in deadly crashes who tested positive for THC has doubled.

The article reports:

According to research by AAA between 2008 and 2012, an estimated eight percent of Washington drivers involved in fatal crashes were positive for THC. That rate now is more than double since weed became legal in Washington.

In the five years before legislation, an average of 56 Washington drivers involved in fatal crashes each year were THC positive. In the five years after legislation, that average jumped to 130.

“We know that marijuana use can inhibit concentration, slow reaction time, and cloud judgment. There’s no reason to think that’s not going to happen when you are behind the wheel. That doesn’t suddenly change,” said Kelly Just of AAA.

THC is the active compound in marijuana and can stay in your body for a period of time before disappearing.

“There really isn’t a test to show impairment, so you may have it in your system, may not be impaired. You may have it in your system and may be impaired. Because of that our recommendation is if you use marijuana, don’t drive and if you plan to drive don’t use marijuana,” said Just.

“We’re running across people under the influence and driving all the way from teenagers, all the way up to people in their forties and fifties. So keep in mind the safest bet is just to not get behind the wheel if you plan on using marijuana that day or night,” said Trooper Chris Thorson of the Washington State Patrol.

I know there is a move for legalization of marijuana, but I question the wisdom of legalizing a drug for recreational use in the middle of an opioid epidemic. There are a lot of pathways to drug addiction and a lot of things that can happen when drugs are used for recreation. The pattern of increased accidents caused by an increase in marijuana use as a result of legalization has been seen in other states. The legalization of marijuana may make some people happy, but it makes all of us less safe.

News That Goes Against The Political Grain

Fox News posted an article today about the impact of marijuana on the adolescent brain.

The article reports:

Two health professionals penned an op-ed in The New York Times on Sunday that despite society’s shift on marijuana use, it does not change the fact that the drug is not safe for high school and college students.

Kenneth L. Davis, the president and chief executive of the Mount Sinai Health System, and Mary Jeanne Kreek, the head of Laboratory of the Biology of Addictive Diseases at Rockefeller University, cited studies that show a “deleterious impact on cognitive development in adolescents.”

The column said marijuana use can impair “executive function, processing speed, memory, attention span and concentration.” They said the explanation is simple: the adolescent brain is still vulnerable “especially the prefrontal cortex.”

“The chemical in marijuana responsible for producing mood elevation and relaxation, THC, interferes with the exchange of information between neurons,” they wrote in, “Marijuana Damages Young Brains.”

Davis and Kreek penned the column in response to New York and New Jersey considering legalizing marijuana for those over 21.

Marijuana is not as harmless as it is being made out to be. In October 2018, I posted an article about a man who had begun using marijuana is his 20’s and became addicted to the drug.

The article reported:

There’s a reason that Alcoholics Anonymous started in 1935, two years after the end of Prohibition. Alcohol abuse became rampant, and the country almost drank itself off the rails. Will the same thing happen with marijuana?

Marijuana isn’t alcohol or an opioid. You can’t die from an overdose. It doesn’t really evince physical cravings. So is it better to call my problem marijuana “dependence”? Does it matter?

Cannabis should be legal, just as alcohol should be legal. But marijuana addiction exists, and it almost wrecked my life. If you have a problem, you are not alone.

I am not convinced marijuana should be legal. I think we have more Americans addicted to marijuana than we realize.

A Story That Needs To Be Told

On October 6, Neal Pollack posted an opinion piece in The New York Times. The title of the opinion piece is, “I’m Just a Middle-Aged House Dad Addicted to Pot.”

The opinion piece details the author’s journey from using marijuana regularly in his 20’s to the realization that he was hooked on the drug.

Some observations from the author:

I started smoking regularly in the ’90s, when I was in my mid-20s. Pot made everything better — food, music, sex, cleaning — and it made nothing worse. I got depressed less often. I laughed all the time.

But I also lost my temper for no reason. Did I yell at strangers in public? Probably. I barely remember, because I was stoned. But I do remember that once, high as a promotional blimp, I got into a bar fight with a former friend and broke his tooth with a beer bottle.

Back when my writing career was booming, I got invited a couple of times to do readings in Amsterdam, a bad gig for a pot addict. Once, after ingesting a couple of THC pills, I dumped a pitcher of water over my head and insulted the Iraqi representative to National Poetry Day Amsterdam. Another time, I pulled down my pants and flashed a crowd of several hundred. If I had any boundaries, weed erased them thoroughly. The boom ended fast.

…In early November (2017), I had the chance to fulfill my lifelong dream of attending a Dodgers World Series game. I spent way too much money on a ticket that turned out to be fake. So high that I couldn’t remember where I’d parked, I started screaming outside the stadium. If I’d been sober, I would have just called the vendor and gotten a refund. That’s what I ended up doing, eventually. But not before security guards surrounded me.

I looked into a car mirror and saw an old man, sobbing over a baseball game. That was the moment I accepted that I had a problem. Three weeks later, I quit.

Mr. Pollack has a few thoughts on how to handle the legalization of marijuana:

There’s a reason that Alcoholics Anonymous started in 1935, two years after the end of Prohibition. Alcohol abuse became rampant, and the country almost drank itself off the rails. Will the same thing happen with marijuana?

Marijuana isn’t alcohol or an opioid. You can’t die from an overdose. It doesn’t really evince physical cravings. So is it better to call my problem marijuana “dependence”? Does it matter?

Cannabis should be legal, just as alcohol should be legal. But marijuana addiction exists, and it almost wrecked my life. If you have a problem, you are not alone.

I personally think marijuana should be limited to medicinal purposes and be a controlled substance. In places where it is legal, children have gotten into mom and dad’s stash and had severe medical issues. There is also an increase in auto accidents due to driving while under the influence of marijuana. I understand that the concept of medical marijuana has been abused in the past, and I have no solution for that. I just think most people function better when they are not under the influence of drugs (or alcohol).

No, It’s Not Harmless

Yesterday the U.K. Daily Mail posted a story about the impact of marijuana use on teenagers.

The article reports:

Cannabis is responsible for 91 per cent of cases where teenagers end up being treated for drug addiction, shocking new figures reveal.

Supporters of the drug claim it is harmless, but an official report now warns the ‘increased dominance of high-potency herbal cannabis’ – known as skunk – is causing more young people to seek treatment.

The revelation comes amid growing concerns that universities – and even some public schools – are awash with high-strength cannabis and other drugs.

The findings also back up academic research, revealed in The Mail on Sunday over the past three years, that skunk is having a serious detrimental impact on the mental health of the young. At least two studies have shown repeated use triples the risk of psychosis, with sufferers repeatedly experiencing delusional thoughts. Some victims end up taking their own lives.

Obviously the article deals with the situation in Britain, but I suspect some of the results of this research are also reflected in America. The problem in Britain is related to the potency of the marijuana used by teenagers. I am unfamiliar with whether or not American marijuana has the same potency. I do know that I have heard numerous people familiar with marijuana in America say that the marijuana available in America today is much more potent than the marijuana that was available during the 1960’s. I don’t have a problem with the use of marijuana in certain medical procedures, but I wonder if it can be administered in pill form and tightly controlled in order to avoid abuse by teenagers who think it is cool. Keeping marijuana away from teenagers after making it legal will probably be about as successful as keeping alcohol away from underage teenagers in the past.

The article further states:

The large rise in the number of youngsters treated for cannabis abuse comes despite the fact that total usage is falling slightly.

The report concludes: ‘While fewer people are using cannabis, those who are using it are experiencing greater harm.’

Almost all cannabis on Britain’s streets is skunk, which is four times more powerful than types that dominated the market until the early 2000s. It can even trigger hallucinations.

We need to rethink the legalization of marijuana. It would be horrible to waste the minds of the generation that will lead this country in the future.