Remembering Candy Cigarettes, Big Tobacco’s Most Evil Way to Turn Children Into Smokers

[douglas9]

There was a time you’d think nothing of seeing young kids puffing on candy cigarettes. Parents would even hand them out on Halloween. Smoking was KOOL. "Just Like Daddy!" one candy ad promised. Hershey Corporation started the trend a century ago when it began hawking chocolate smokes, and by the 1920s, companies such as World Candies and Necco were selling a chalky white version. You could also get skinny bubblegum cigs in white paper tubes—bonus: Blowing on them produced a little puff of gum-dust smoke.


http://www.motherjones.com/media/2016/10/marketing-candy-cigarettes-tobacco-halloween

[SOUTHERNYANKEE75]

1. I had these as a kid, never smoked the real thing :)

[lame54]

22. same here

[geomon666]

37. Yup, loved em.

So bad for you though, pure sugar.

[ileus]

2. Used to love those as a kid....(and any other candy)

Never smoked anything....period...ever...not once. I'll dare to say most kids would tell you the same, they were candy. There's a difference between being a 7yo eating a piece of candy, and being in 8th grade and the 9th grader offering you a smoke he stole off his parents.

[left-of-center2012]

3. "skinny bubblegum cigs"

I remember not so skinny bubblegum 'cigars'.

[TexasProgresive]

4. I never could stand those chalky things

The reason I started smoking cigarettes is because my Dad did and I wanted to be like him.

[cwydro]

5. My sis and I loved them, but neither of us ever became smokers.

[Nay]

16. My brother and I loved them, our parents both smoked real cigarettes like fiends, and

my brother and I never so much as took one puff from a real cigarette. This is not to say candy cigs are fine, though. When you surround people (esp kids) with this sort of thing to normalize smoking, you will def hook more people.

[FSogol]

33. Same here. n/t

[Raine]

34. Me too, I never smoked neither did my parents or most of

our extended family. Some of the family had smoked and quit, they were really anti-smoking so I did grow up with that attitude ... thank goodness!

[ronnie624]

6. Logical fallacies abound.

'I ate candy cigarettes and never smoked, therefore candy cigarettes and their advertising, never encouraged other children to smoke.'

Our educational system desperately needs to focus on instilling rational thinking in students.

[Major Nikon]

9. The next thing you know they'll be selling straws filled with white powder to kids

[ronnie624]

12. Studies demonstrate conclusively,

that propaganda (advertising), is a very effective means of promoting behaviors among a population. Governments have been doing it from the beginning. For people to sit here and claim that the principle suddenly collapses when we're talking about promoting the consumption of candy cigarettes, is patently absurd.

[The River]

27. Per Joe Bagent

"The average American spends about one third of his or her waking life watching television. The neurological implications of this are so profound that they cannot even be comprehended in words, much less described by them. Television creates our reality, regulates our national perceptions and our interior hallucinations of who we Americans are (the best and only important tribe on the planet.) It schedules our cultural illusions of choice, displays pre-selected candidates in our elections, or types of consumer goods. It regulates holiday marketing opportunities and the national neurological seasons, which are now governed by the electrons of the illusion. We live
within a media-generated belief system that functions as the operating instructions for society. Anything outside of its parameters represents fear and psychological free-fall to the face less legions of within it."

http://www.coldtype.net/Assets.05/Essays/12.Joe.thrush.pdf

[OIFmamaVET]

8. They've come a long way baby

And are still around, I've seen them in the dollar store.

[Wounded Bear]

10. Actually, there was another thing that was almost as egregious...

C-rations and K-rations used to include two cigarettes with every meal. That was before MREs, and they discontinued the practice before I was in during the 70's, but during WWII they hooked quite a few GI's.

Nothing like a smoke to alleviate stress, eh?

[ronnie624]

13. It was a pack with four cigs inside.

I've smoked a many of those.

[Wounded Bear]

14. I stand corrected....

[GreenEyedLefty]

18. My husband's uncle was a POW in WWII

He used the cigarettes he got from the Red Cross as currency to get information and leniency. Thanks to the cigarette bribes he was able to track the Allied advance across Europe and his interrogations, while harsh, were not horrible.

[ronnie624]

19. Many young men started smoking as a result,

and then later developed upper respiratory and cardiovascular ailments . Make no mistake about it, the costs far outweighed any benefits for them.

[Ex Lurker]

43. Plus, if you smoked, you got smoke breaks.

If you didn't smoke, no breaks.

[pinboy3niner]

44. In Vietnam, field platoons also got 'sundries packs' with whole cartons of cigs

There was an assortment of major brands, and the cigarettes would be divided up among a platoon according to brand preferences.

The SPs also had other goodies, including boot laces, toilet paper, soap, candy, stationery, razors, and more.

The SPs would be dropped off by chopper periodically--about once a month or so, iirc.

[Revanchist]

11. I wonder what the reaction would be

If I brought some and handed them out for Halloween?

[xmas74]

23. I would demand your address immediately.

I'll be the fortysomething woman with my purse open, demanding all the smokes. I used to love candy cigs and gum cigs.

[Revanchist]

24. Here ya go

http://www.candywarehouse.com/products/cigarette-candy-packs-24-piece-box/

[GreenEyedLefty]

17. The bubblegum cigs in paper brings back a memory

I was with my friends and one of them gave me a bubblegum cigarette. I blew out and it made a little puff of sugar. My neighbor saw me do this and told my mom. I got in so much trouble! I could not get my mom to believe it was just bubble gum... jeez. Both of my parents were smokers. Years later, I tried smoking once and it made me sick and I never tried it again.

[AgadorSparticus]

20. It didn't work on me. I had them as a kid and pretended to smoke too.

But have never once taken even 1 puff off a cigarette. It stinks like the high heavens and as I got older, there were warnings everywhere about smoking and lung cancer. Besides, I was too busy fighting the humidity to create the enormous big hair of the 80's to focus on the "coolness" cigarettes.

[whistler162]

21. Yes, candy cigarettes turned me into a 20 pack

a day smoker!<SARCASM>

I lie it was actually Slim Jims that got me started!

[LWolf]

25. It's interesting

that this article references the KOOL brand.

Not only do I remember candy cigarettes, not only did I occasionally "puff" on them, but when I was 8 years old or so I actually made a KOOL costume for Halloween and trick-or-treated in it.

It was pretty simple: a white grocery bag with arm holes and the "KOOL" spelled out in large letters, with the "Os" cut out to make eye holes, and the rest of the packaging in small print. I wore tights and sneakers underneath.

My mom was a smoker; of course, I literally didn't meet someone who wasn't until I was almost out of high school. I was "cool" when I had to be in high school, occasionally smoking, but most of my smoking did not involve tobacco, and I was fortunate to end up not addicted. I think the last time I had a cigarette I was 16.

My mom quite when she was 40. It was a big ordeal.

[former9thward]

26. No, this was not "Big Tobacco"

Kids become smokers because of their parents not candy cigarettes. Kids become smokers because of their peer group not because of candy cigarettes. Candy cigarettes disappeared a long time ago and kids are still smoking.

[Divine Discontent]

39. they did not disappear, fyi! I saw three empty packs at my brother's that his kids ate, and

mssanthrope below said they got their kid a pack last year as well.

when I saw the empty boxes I was like, oh, they still make those! LOL

We had dozens of these boxes of cig candy growing up, and our dad even smoked. Didn't make any of us smoke!

[cwydro]

28. Do they still have that Big League Chew stuff?

That was around for awhile.

[ghostsinthemachine]

29. I'd kill for a candy cigarette right about now

I still remember the taste and where we used to buy them.

[Divine Discontent]

40. ditto! I was mad there were none left in the boxes I just saw at my sibling's house

that their kids ate

[Warren DeMontague]

30. I ate candy cigarettes growing up. Never became a cigarette smoker. Know why?

because in High School, when all my friends who became nicotine addicts were starting to smoke, I was way too busy smoking weed to bother with anything else.

Turns out, though, the weed is a far easier habit to kick.

Go figure.

There's a lesson in human nature in there, somewhere, I'm sure of it.

[Judi Lynn]

32. So much better than wax lips, or mustaches, better than jelly orange slices with sugar,

and far, far better than trying to eat actual cigarettes.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

36. Wax lips! I remember getting a few as a kid, and thinking...

I chewed chunks off the first wax lips I ever received, expecting sweet candy somewhere inside!

Latter ones were always tossed in the garbage. Pretending to have gigantic lips wasn't "fun" to me.

[msanthrope]

35. I bought my kid a pack last Halloween. nt

[Divine Discontent]

38. All 6 of us had these constantly - never smoked, and we're all middle aged. LOL

I loved the powder on them.

My father smoked, and I hated cigs but gladly would joke I was smoking with these silly candy boxes. People who choose to smoke have a disposition I think, it could be genetic. My friend acts just like his mom, both smoke. We act like a mix of our parents, none act just like our dad who smoked, but the one that was the most similar to him, used to do dip.

[area51]

41. Anyone remember this '60s anti-smoking ad?

[tblue37]

45. W loved both the candy and the gum cigarettes. nt

[PCIntern]

46. Tasty nt