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I believe most of the negative impacts you're referring to are covered by existing laws concerning fraud and consumer protection. I'm in favor of making truly fraudulent and predatory behavior illegal. I don't see any evidence that the "collective harm" you mention from the article is anything other than individuals making bad financial decisions.

I believe that I, as a responsible adult, should be allowed to gamble for entertainment if I want to, and my right to do that shouldn't be taken away because a small minority of the population has low impulse control.

by bpt310 hours ago|

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> I don't see any evidence that the "collective harm" you mention from the article is anything other than individuals making bad financial decisions.

Legalized gambling establishments do very little besides extract money from visitors and project negative externalities into their surroundings.

> I believe that I, as a responsible adult, should be allowed to gamble for entertainment if I want to, and my right to do that shouldn't be taken away because a small minority of the population has low impulse control.

You can believe that, and be correct in theory. In practice, the "small minority" doesn't appear to be small enough under the current regulatory regime.

It's no different than the regulation of controlled substances and other vices. Or do you have an issue with that as well, and feel you should have the right to consume as much heroin as you want?

by fasterik9 hours ago|

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I'm pretty liberal when it comes to drugs. I think it's a case by case basis, but I do believe that heroin and most other drugs should be legal and regulated. As long as there's demand, prohibition just leads to black markets, funnels money to cartels, and consumers ultimately get a less reliable and more dangerous product.

by bpt39 hours ago|

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Is there any drug that you would consider off limits for recreational consumption? OxyContin or fentanyl for example?

by fasterik8 hours ago|

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I don't consider those off limits for recreational consumption in safe doses. If fentanyl were legalized, I would see a strong argument for restricting the sale of large amounts of pure fentanyl. Fentanyl lollipops with small doses, I think would be fine.

Regardless, I don't think we should stretch the metaphor between gambling and drugs too far. They are fundamentally different things.

by bpt37 hours ago|

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They aren't that different, in that they are addictive, provide no value to society other than entertainment (which is not worthless by any means, but not something that is very heavily weighted in a cost/benefit analysis), and the resulting behavior of addicted individuals is highly negative and has an impact well beyond the addicted individual.

You are on an extreme fringe to put it mildly. It is your right to hold that opinion, but it also means that there's no real point in discussing this with you from what I can tell.