Washington, DC—Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) celebrates the publication today of Danny Funt’s major new book on sports betting and addiction, Everybody Loses, from Simon & Schuster.
“As the author of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, I have had the honor of leading an effort to ensure people can gain access to mental health and addiction treatment,” said SAM Co-Founder Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy. “But the real challenge for our movement is to reduce the number of people who need treatment by doing more public health prevention. Make no mistake, sports betting is pouring gasoline on the fire of our country’s problems with both mental health and addiction.”
“Everybody Loses is a crucial book on a crucial subject,” said SAM President and CEO Kevin Sabet. “Researchers in 2020 found that some 80% of the money wagered on sports betting platforms comes from only 7% of the bettors and some 20% of sports bettors report difficulty in meeting their financial obligations due to betting. Almost half of American men 18-49 have a sports betting account. Legal sports betting is one of the largest and most powerful addiction industries in America, and the social havoc it’s wreaked is evident in the financial precarity users have been drawn into by frictionless, app-based betting.”
“These companies have been running a playbook identical to Big Tobacco and Big Marijuana,” said Sabet. “These companies use dishonesty and disinformation to develop lifelong consumers of their products. Funt’s deep, devastating book is a powerful extension of the work SAM and its allies have been doing for years to promote genuine public health—a brilliantly written exposé illuminating the next frontier in the addiction fight and how major corporate interests profit from harm.”
“Our nationwide membership is passionate about public health,” Sabet said. “The findings of Everybody Loses are essential knowledge for anyone interested in a mentally and physically healthy society—they are central to SAM’s core mission. We are happy to stand with Danny as part of a broad coalition devoted to ending addiction for profit. America should be making sure people with addictions get help to end them, not standing aside while large corporations line up to take advantage.”
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