WHAT MESSAGE ARE WE SENDING TO THE CHILDREN?

Here's a request for input from all of you. One of the most annoying
tricks used by drug prohibitionists is the old "What message would
that send to the children?" used in opposition to any drug policy
reform, usually when the facts are against them.

I would like to put together a page of actual messages that we send
to children by continuing prohibition as it exists.

Things like...

* "Lying is OK when adults are talking about drugs."

* "Our interest in what's good for the family is less important than
our desire to punish."

* "If you make a mistake regarding drug use, we'd rather have you die
from it than have information that might save your life."

* "If you make a mistake regarding drug use, we're going to make sure
that your friends are too afraid to get help that might save you."

* "If you're going to use drugs, we want to make sure that you get
them from a criminal, with uncertain purity and dosage."

* "We're really hoping that heroin addicts will get HIV and hepatitis
from shared needles and die. That's why we won't allow needle exchange."

* "You have no rights. We can come and test your blood or your urine
or search you whenever we feel like it. You're property."

* "We use sick people as a tool for our political purposes. We don't
care whether they are in pain or die from a lack of medicine."

* "We sit in Washington drinking martinis and thinking up ways to
destroy the lives of kids who like to smoke pot."

* "We'll destroy the livelihoods of poor farmers and decimate their
crops in order to make the drug dealers and drug warriors richer."

In comments, add your own, or adjust the wording of some that I've given.