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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (218663)	9/5/2007 10:54:43 PM
From: alanrs	Respond to of 793755

>But don't you think a lot more kids might try it for the first time, if everything was legal? Especially if it was legal and advertised?< I don't know. I was born in 1950. As a freshman in college (1968), juniors on up drank and sophomores on down did drugs. While Grinnell was a bastion of liberalism even then, I don't think it was much different than any place else. Everybody did drugs. I remember one guy my age who stopped. He had an older brother there who convinced him that if he wanted a career in politics (which he did-he came from that kind of family) he should be careful of what he did or was seen doing. I remember that because it was so unusual. Obsessive behavior, whether it involves drugs or work or sex or power....I don't know what triggers it and I don't know how to predict it. As far as 'a lot more kids', I'm not sure it would matter. Anybody who wants to does already. The vast majority of the time it's no big deal and life moves on. Someone with an 'addictive personality', as it is called, isn't going to be deterred by the legality of it all. It's not a libertarian thing, particularly. More a practical one. As far as advertising goes, listen to the radio. The same songs that glorified the whole thing from the beginning are still in vogue as far as I can tell, plus a lot more since. Sex and drugs and rock-n-roll, a good dose of testosterone and estrogen, an artificially protracted childhood, and no life or death struggles to test oneself against (for the most part). Is it really all that surprising? Even if a whole lot more kids tried it, it is still my opinion that the net benefit would be huge. There will always be the element of "skating away on the thin ice of a new day". (one of my favorite lyrics). Don't see a good way around that. ARS