BMJ 1995;311:1225 (4 November)

Letters

Gambling with the nation's health?

Lottery is immoral

The whore and gambler, by the state Licensed, build that nation's fate.

William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

EDITOR,--Martin McKee and Franco Sassi's editorial raises an issue that has been largely ignored in the polemic arising since the introduction of the National Lottery.1 Well directed and amply endowed publicity can realise whatever it sets out to achieve, and selling vice is no exception. When governments set about peddling vice, however, perhaps we need to wake up and ask some questions. None would argue but that gambling is a vice--one in which most of us indulge from time to time without harm. But, as with all vice, there is the problem of over-indulgence, or addiction.

Is there any moral difference between a government that decides one day to nationalise the manufacture of alcohol and then to promote its consumption with a massive publicity drive to raise funds for worthy . . . [Full text of this article]


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Relevant Article

Gambling with the nation's health?
Martin McKee and Franco Sassi
BMJ 1995 311: 521-522. [Extract] [Full Text]

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