To have a means of coming down from intoxication that results in fewer adverse effects. A soft landing usually involves either having a reduced intake of the substance used or using an alternative to reduce the impact of coming down from that substance. In addiction this is hard to achieve.
John used a 6 pack of beer to have a soft landing after his heavy weekend of partying.
To throw your enemies from a significant height - not unto a hard surface, but rather a softone so that their bodies are broken and they live the rest of their lives in misery.
Peter has taken the scheme too far. He is at risk of receiving a Hangzhou soft landing
Fogey/fogy /fougi/ sl. (early 18C+, orig. Scot) old-fashioned, stuck-in-the mud.
Person with old fashioned ideas which he is unwilling to change: Come to the disco and stop being such an old fogey!
You think me an old fogeyand an old tory, his thoughtful voice said. I saw three generations since O’Connel’s time. I remember the famine. Do you know that the orange lodges agitated for repeal of the union twenty years before O’Connel did or before the prelates of your communion denounced him as a demagogue? You fenians forget some things. (James Joyce, Ulysses. Penguin Books,1992. p. 38)