Footey, I made one comment about what I thought was a failed campaign during the Len Bias era. Here it is:
Get drafted by the world champs and blow coke up your nose, really intelligent....
Drug abuse, then and now, affects people of every race, age and creed ... intelligence or social status has nothing to do with it. He made a mistake, like all of us do from time-to-time ... unfortunately that mistake took his life. RIP, Len.
Absolutely true. Remember this was 1986 before the advent of the internet, before the advent of 157 different cable channels with information about everything possible. This was the beginning of Reagan's ridiculous "Just Say No" campaign of fighting drugs rather than education of the problems in the schools. And this was the beginning of the crack cocaine era in the urban areas of America. Tons of crack overdoses were attributed to cocaine powder overdoses at the time because the medical community hadn't kept up with the new forms of drugs hitting the streets.
Drug use and abuse is a horrible thing and should never be made light of. What happened to Lenny and maybe others(you think who you want to think I'm referring to, I'll leave it at that) are tragedies and shouldn't be the brunt of jokes or poor taste comments. Bias' story and many other more personal ones of that era still hit too close to home for many a Celtic and basketball fan.
My entire body of the post was just discussing that during a very different time, when things were very different than they are today(and illustrating how they were different), it was unduly cruel to criticize Bias' actions. Things were different. The amount of knowledge of such things were different.
It is you who took exception to my one innocuous comment of that campaign that has taken this into politics. Sorry if I don't agree with your interpretation of what happened back then. I thought Reagan a great president and voted for him twice. I do think that particular campaign was a failure and it has nothing to do with my political view of things. Just what I lived through and experienced and remember.
I didn't started a polemic against conservative politics. I never blamed Nancy Reagan for Bias' death. I said the "Just Say No" campaign was ridiculous and stuck to my guns after your defense of an utterly failed attempted at curbing drug use in America.