The Release charity in the UK has a campaign called "Nice People Take Drugs", which aims to change drug policy to harm reduction and remove the stigma associated with drug use. One of their promotional tools is a deck of cards, each featuring a politician known to be tough on drugs, subtitled with a confessional quote of drug use from their youth:
I understand your point, although I would say that the speed limit is rather more directly related to harm to others.
My view is that young people will refuse to be lectured on the dangers of drugs by politicians who themselves enjoyed drugs during their youth. Unless that politician's got some kind of personal horror story, such as "heroin killed my entire family", then their opinion will not carry much weight. Kids look at them, see a bunch of basically privileged people that had a wild time and enjoyed all sorts of illegal drugs at college, and then packed it all in when they finally got a good job. This is not a great platform to preach from. Young people ask, "if they can do it, why can't I?"
Not particularly. Driving at 80mph on motorways, where the limit is 70, is not dangerous. Motorways are the safest roads about. Majority of deaths happen on the quieter windier roads near peoples houses.
There's a pretty clear evidence based case for raising the limit to 80, since everyone drives at it anyway, but doing so could be unpopular. So it's reasonably similar.
(Incidentally the refernce speed for German motorways is 130 km/h or pretty much 80 mph. Driving faster or slower is no misdemeanor or felony, but may increase liability.)
That quote seems absolutely insane, the most egregious out of all of them. I searched and can't find a reference for it, though. I'm surprised that Thomas supports the power of the DEA created by the executive branch given its clear unconstitutionality.
http://www.release.org.uk/nicepeopletakedrugs/deck-of-cards/
(you can click on each card to see the quote)