I am SO tired of hearing about "sending a message to children". The government says they must be careful to send just the "right" message to children. So careful, that they are willing to pass laws that trespass ever deeper into the realm of the private citizen, ignoring the Constitution, ignoring even the will of the people.
Children pick up "messages" from everywhere, but the absolute most important "messages" they pick up are from their parents, long before a child has a clue about government, or "sending messages". Most child psychologists agree that by the time a child is seven or eight years old, their personality traits and value system have already been established. Indeed, responsible parents know what their children will be like before they ever get into a government-run public school.
As a child grows through adolescence, he applies the values he learned in his childhood to the world around him. Then, his teen years are spent applying that knowledge to "real life". By the time a child has reached adulthood, he has a basic knowledge of how the world works, and how he fits in.
At least, that's the way it's SUPPOSED to happen.
For the last twenty or so years, the US has had a unique problem: more and more children are having children. These young parents have hardly had time to learn how to be people, yet they bear the responsibility of raising MORE people. How can they teach values to their children, when they barely know themselves?
"Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime." While I believe in LESS government, if the government really wanted to "send the right message", we would see parenting courses and counselling; we would be TEACHING these young people how to be parents. Instead, the government wants to send their own message. So they rave about the "drug problem" as if illegal drugs are the root of society's problems. They pass invasive laws that threaten innocent citizens as if putting people in jail is the solution to society's problems.
The federal government needs to get out of the message-sending business, and concentrate on the things the Constitution charges them with. The revolution that started this country was precipitated by the same sort of government action we're beginning to see today, in the name of "protecting our children".