Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Serious Candy Addiction Rocking Middle Schools

What is happening to kids these days? A Wall Street Journal article published this past weekend reported that middle school children in Frisco, Colorado are smoking Smarties.

That’s right… the little dummies are crushing the small little candy pills into powder and blowing the “Smarties’ dust” out to mimic a smoke cloud.

The article continues to follow other candy misuse. There are videos with instructions on the Web. Some kids go so far as to exhale the powder out their nose.

It gets worse. Oren Friedman of the Mayo Clinic is quoted in the article as saying that it is possible that students can get not only infections in their nose, but maggots! I have no idea how this is possible.

I remember hearing a story once while riding the school bus (this is an important location for collecting the juicy gossip) of a kid in elementary school snorting pixie sticks. I can’t imagine how that would burn. One would think that the citric acid used in Smarties would be a deterrent.

I wonder if this is what it means to really be addicted to candy. Are Smarties a gateway treat to harder substances such as Pop Rocks… or Big League Chew?

Whatever happened to pretending to smoke candy cigarettes?

7 comments:

  1. I definitely witnessed this when I was in school, and I've seen it a few times in the middle school where I teach.

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  2. Seriously? What kind of example are you giveing these kids-- hahah. I blame the teachers. Josie- whip them into shape!

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  3. I was just going to say, whatever happened to candy cigarettes? I think they might be frowned upon these days, but as this Smarties thing proves, kids will really do anything to emulate what they perceive as cool adult behavior. Including snorting pixi sticks. Take those away, and they'll probably start doing lines of plain sugar.

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  4. I had no idea...I do remember the candy cigarettes, though.

    Snorting sugar...I just don't get it.

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  5. That is funny about "hearing the gossip" on the school bus about the kid snorting pixie sticks, that use to be me haha.

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  6. control must be sweet because they eat our children can become an addiction and that and would be very bad.

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  7. We have to find a way to deal with it. Because kids won't stop to try something more dangerous with it. They love the chanlleges so you can expect that they want to take even further.

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