{"id":430,"date":"2006-07-06T15:00:22","date_gmt":"2006-07-06T20:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/?p=430"},"modified":"2006-08-09T21:08:01","modified_gmt":"2006-08-10T02:08:01","slug":"drug-debate-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/?p=430","title":{"rendered":"Drug debate continues"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My little debate over drugs has become a 4-way debate. A new voice entered the picture and sent me an email.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Harry, Vic and Deb,<\/p>\n<p>Great stuff, all of you but I do have one small disagreement with Harry&#8217;s reply&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve come to buy the conservative argument about gateway drugs. If we were going to legalize marijuana I&#8217;d want it regulated as strictly if not more so than liquor.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It seems odd that no one has seen liquor as the gateway drug. I, in my life, have never known anyone who didn&#8217;t drink liquor before trying some other mind altering drug. I&#8217;ve never been part of the meth culture but I&#8217;d be willing to bet that the damages (societal and monetary) caused by alcohol still out weigh all the other drugs. Reminds me of the cartoon where a congressman is discussing drug abuse in America with a bartender and the bartender says that all drug dealers and users should be shot and the congressman says,<br \/>\n&#8220;I&#8217;ll drink to that&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Any way, Harry, lots of luck. I&#8217;m sure you&#8217;ve heard that middle of the road people get hit by traffic from both directions. Vic, Deb and I are kind of like motor scooters. Ya gotta watch out for the big trucks.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>To which I replied:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The gateway drug stuff is oversimplified and your point about booze is well taken. In a way every experience is a gateway experience to the next. Once you&#8217;ve been on a Ferris wheel you want to go on the Octopus then to the roller coaster. Once you&#8217;ve had tea you&#8217;d like to try coffee etc etc. Nonetheless, because people have a tendency to ratchet things up past the reasonable point the collective will ( read government) ought to intervene to make sure it keeps its citizens safe from their own over exuberance. &#8220;I just drove 80 mph and no one pulled me over. Let&#8217;s try 100 mph!&#8221; Try that on a motor scooter.Thanks, on your good wishes. I&#8217;m going to have some fun with this campaign.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My little debate over drugs has become a 4-way debate. A new voice entered the picture and sent me an email. &#8220;Harry, Vic and&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legalized-drugs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}