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Bill to update school suicide‑prevention guidance adds gambling awareness after advocates cite links to youth harm
Summary
Senate Bill 310 would modernize Maryland’s youth suicide prevention school program and explicitly add gambling addiction to recommended awareness guidance. Sponsors and public health advocates told the committee they want schools to be allowed—voluntarily—to include education on gambling harms amid rising adolescent participation in gambling.
Sen. Simon Ayre introduced Senate Bill 310 as a consensus, non‑mandating update to Maryland—s youth suicide prevention school guidance, telling the committee the bill aligns program materials with the state Blueprint for Maryland—s Future and updates language that has not been revised since the late 1990s.
The bill would encourage local school systems to include gambling addiction in awareness and prevention guidance because witnesses argued gambling carries elevated suicide risk and adolescents have high rates of early onset. Anna Kate Cagle, a student attorney with the University of Maryland Public Health Law…
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