Remember the days when you could walk into the gas station and buy a pack of candy cigarettes ? I remember the forbidden pleasure in picking one up and pretending I was older and smoking. Apparently the FDA realized that this wasn’t the best thing to be marketing to our children and on September 22, 2009 sent out a news release banning them from being sold in the United States. Now as a parent and remembering how I “played” with the cigarettes and continue to attempt to quit smoking real ones I understand the importance of this decision.
Two years later another candy that is even more controversial then cigarettes is now hitting the shelves…take a deep breath..wait for it.. MARIJUANA CANDY!!!! Aww c’mon mom pleaaaasseee ! Now before it gets too out of control the candy itself is not made out of marijuana but instead it is regular candy in the shape of marijuana leaves and baggies with names such as “pothead lollipops”. The labels also contain the word “legalize”. The candy which is distributed by Kalan LP . is already causing quite a stir amongst parents and has been mentioned on Fox News as well as the Today show. I have yet to see these on shelves here in Washington state but my fiance did run into a lollipipe at the store, it is pure candy in the shape of a pipe and after doing some googiling I also found that there are a lot of people that are actually using it to smoke marijuana .
In regards to the controversy, I am in the mind set that it’s one thing to legalize medical marijuana in order to provide some relief to chronic pain patients who are sick of taking medications that are ten times worse for the body and more addictive, BUT quite the other to be marketing to children and leading them to believe that marijuana is OK . Children are the main marketing force behind candy and well they don’t think in the same way as adults do and it makes it difficult to explain that drugs are bad when they are making candy to look like drugs and selling them at the store.
I am looking forward to what the FDA has to say about it. I have a feeling that if they believe fake cigarettes are unhealthy for children’s mindsets then drug candy will get a similar response.
Children=innocence
Drugs=bad
Candy=good
Candy in shape of drugs readily accessible to children=What the hell were you thinking?
What do you think?
What would you do if your child came home with a “pothead lollipop?