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Police: Hershey Candy Looks Like Drugs

Fri Nov 30, 2007 11:13 PM EST
us-news, odd-news, hershey, packets, mint-packets
Marc Levy, Associated Press

nul

A Hershey Co.'s Ice Breakers Pacs product containing nickel-sized dissolvable pouches with a mint flavored powdered sweetener inside, is photographed in Harrisburg, Pa., Friday, Nov. 30, 2007. Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector William Blackburn told the Philadelphia Daily News that Ice Breakers Pacs look similar to the tiny heat-sealed bags used to sell illegal powdered drugs like crack, heroin and cocaine. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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HARRISBURG — New mint packets being sold by The Hershey Co. look nearly identical to the tiny heat-sealed bags used to sell illegal powdered drugs like crack, heroin and cocaine and glorify the drug trade, a Philadelphia police official said.

Ice Breakers Pacs, nickel-sized dissolvable pouches with a powdered sweetener inside, hit store shelves in November. The packets, which come in blue and orange plastic slide-up cases, are similar enough to drug packets that a child familiar with the candy could mistakenly swallow a heat-sealed bag of drugs, Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector William Blackburn told the Philadelphia Daily News for an article published Friday.

"It glorifies the drug trade," he said. "There's really no reason that a product like this should be on the shelf."

A spokesman for the company, based in Hershey, Pa., pointed out that each pouch — made by two dissolvable mint strips — bears the Ice Breakers logo.

"It is not intended to simulate anything," said spokesman Kirk Saville.

Saville would not directly respond to questions about whether Hershey has plans to change the product's appearance or whether anyone in law enforcement or inside the company has previously raised a concern about it.

___

On the Net:

Ice Breakers Pacs: http://www.hersheys.com/icebreakers/pacs

© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Published to:

  • Marc Levy's Column, All of Newsvine
  • Groups: Marijuana News
  • Regions: United States , Harrisburg/Lancaster/Lebanon/York
  • Public Discussion (23)
M. Remmers

"It glorifies the drug trade," [Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector William Blackburn] said. "There's really no reason that a product like this should be on the shelf."

Are you @!$%#ting me? It glorifies the drug trade!? People sell drugs because it's a great source of income and not because they think it looks like fun. Nobody says to themselves, "These little blue baggies are cool. I think I'll start selling meth!" If nothing else it would be drugs that glorify this product and not vice-versa. Chief Inspector William Blackburn is an asshat.

  • 3 votes
Reply#1 - Sat Dec 1, 2007 2:46 AM EST
Jared Kardos

Candy looks like drugs? What are you, high?

Besides, any kid who has parents with any form of common sense should tell the kids at some point in their most accessable age that selling meth is a bad bad thing to do that will either kill you or send you to prison where a behemoth of a biker named Bob will touch you in funny places.

In other words: Penn. police = mentally challenged Neanderthals.

    Reply#2 - Sat Dec 1, 2007 4:57 AM EST
    steveoutdoorrec

    The packets, which come in blue and orange plastic slide-up cases, are similar enough to drug packets that a child familiar with the candy could mistakenly swallow a heat-sealed bag of drugs

    I think that's a legitimate concern. Not that some kid will think it's cool to sell drugs but that some small child will think a packet of drugs is the candy. Happens all the time with cleaning products. Blue colored Windex looks a lot like blue colored juice and a child that can't read might drink it.

    • 3 votes
    Reply#3 - Sat Dec 1, 2007 7:02 AM EST
    biggerthebetter

    True, but the real danger is not from the candy; it's from the fact that a kid is growing up in a house where little bags of drugs are hanging around.

    Sheesh.

    • 3 votes
    #3.1 - Sat Dec 1, 2007 10:08 AM EST
    steveoutdoorrec

    No, the real danger is that he might find a bag of drugs in the playground that was ditched by a dealer or user some night and eat them because it looks like the candy.

    • 1 vote
    #3.2 - Sat Dec 1, 2007 3:53 PM EST
    Tedd Riggs

    Ditched drugs picked up by a kid thinking it was his favorite candy would be tragic and could happen.
    Kids pick up anything and the first place it goes is in their mouth, especially if it looks familiar, its best not to tempt fate.

    • 2 votes
    #3.3 - Sat Dec 1, 2007 5:24 PM EST
    Vincent Grayson

    Please tell me that this entire conversation is in jest.

    Are you seriously suggesting that Hershey should alter their candy because some kid somewhere who likes the candy might happen to be playing alone on a playground some day and discovered a discarded pouch of coke/crack/meth/etc and immediately eat it?

    Is that really a legitimate concern? I say no, no it's @!$%#ing not.

    • 2 votes
    #3.4 - Mon Dec 3, 2007 3:13 PM EST
    steveoutdoorrec

    I wish this wasn't a legitimate concern but it is.
    Look here for a list of common household items that are dangerous.

    Kids will get into everything and very young kids don't have the reasoning powers that we developed to tell us that an unknown substance might be harmful. That is why we cover electric outlets and child-proof cabinets when you have a child.

    • 1 vote
    #3.5 - Mon Dec 3, 2007 7:58 PM EST
    Vincent Grayson

    But the key difference between the house, and a park is that presumably, people watch what their children are doing at the park.

      #3.6 - Tue Dec 4, 2007 9:06 AM EST
      steveoutdoorrec

      Have you ever watched a small child? Say a two year old that's playing by crawling around your picnic blanket. You turn your back for a couple of seconds to grab a soda from the cooler and when you turn back they have a worm hanging from their mouth.

      Or a three year old that finds something on the floor of a store and tastes it while you are holding that cute shirt up to their older brother.

      Kids don't just do dumb things in their own homes. We take them outside.

      I was using the cleaning products as an example of items that look like food.

      That is what they are saying about this candy. A small child may think a packet of coke/heroin/meth looks like candy. The possibility is there whether we want it to be or not.

      • 1 vote
      #3.7 - Tue Dec 4, 2007 3:18 PM EST
      Reply
      Tedd Riggs

      I would be willing to bet that this will be yanked off the market before it hits most of the stores. What happens when kids start bringing these to school ? The first thing is the school system is going to say is no candy that looks like any form of drugs and there goes the market with the bad PR.

      • 1 vote
      Reply#4 - Sat Dec 1, 2007 10:35 AM EST
      bluecollarbytes

      Drug dealers have been emulating brand name junk foods for years now, in packaging and names. It's not that far fetched that some yoots at Hersheys in charge of new product development, knowingly emulated right back {thinking it's sorta trendy}.

      I'm still trying to figure out who is going to buy tiny packets of unknown chemicals, then stick those chemicals in their mouth, Hersheys or not.

      • 1 vote
      Reply#5 - Sat Dec 1, 2007 10:41 AM EST
      steveoutdoorrec

      The active ingredient in this candy is Xylitol'

      From Wikipedia

      Xylitol is a five-carbon sugar alcohol that is used as a sugar substitute. Xylitol is a naturally occurring sweetener found in the fibers of many fruits and vegetables, including various berries, corn husks, oats, and mushrooms.[2] It can be extracted from corn fiber,[3] birch, raspberries, plums, and corn. Xylitol is roughly as sweet as sucrose but with two-thirds the food energy.

      Properties
      One teaspoon of xylitol contains 9.6 calories, as compared to one teaspoon of sugar, which has 15 calories. Xylitol contains zero net effective carbohydrates,[citation needed] whereas sugar contains 4 grams per teaspoon. Xylitol has virtually no aftertaste, and is advertised as "safe for diabetics and individuals with hyperglycemia". This is because sugar-alcohols have less impact on a person's blood sugar than regular sugars[4].

      • 2 votes
      Reply#6 - Sat Dec 1, 2007 5:48 PM EST
      Tedd Riggs

      Interesting timing. Our local healthy grocery chain just yanked all high fructose sweetener's


      Amid debate, grocery chain bans high-fructose corn syrup

      • 1 vote
      #6.1 - Sat Dec 1, 2007 9:19 PM EST
      Reply
      Guy Montag

      Yay! Now I can make my friends think I do drugs!

      • 2 votes
      Reply#7 - Sat Dec 1, 2007 11:05 PM EST
      Steve Webel

      Great idea Hershey!

      Almost as good as the 'candy cigarettes' that were sold back in the 80's.

      • 1 vote
      Reply#8 - Sun Dec 2, 2007 11:51 PM EST
      steveoutdoorrec

      You ever try to light one? They don't draw worth a darn and talk about harsh

      • 2 votes
      #8.1 - Mon Dec 3, 2007 11:05 AM EST
      Tedd Riggs

      I never tried to light one, but I used to sneak them into my Mom's pack of Kent cigarettes and she had a little bit of a funny look on her face when she got to them, but it took a while until she noticed.....

      • 2 votes
      #8.2 - Mon Dec 3, 2007 11:08 AM EST
      KyleN

      I got a hold of one of those packs of candy cigs once when 8 or so and was pretending to smoke one when my granddad saw. I was in big trouble. They didn't want anything that made smoking look cool, said it was so hard for them to quit they were going to do anything to keep me from starting.

      • 2 votes
      #8.3 - Mon Dec 3, 2007 11:26 AM EST
      Reply
      Wheel

      Isn't it odd how the 'war on the bill of rights...opps...sorry, on drugs reaches into our lives in odd, occasionally almost outre, ways?

      • 2 votes
      Reply#9 - Mon Dec 3, 2007 11:16 AM EST
      Steve Webel

      How is this in any way a 'war on the bill of rights'? If anything, it celebrates the BOR - Hershey has the freedom to make such an idiotic product - no laws against stupidity.

      There is a difference between saying you are not allowed to do something and that you shouldn't do something.

      I think you meant "outré" - if you're gonna use obscure words, at least look up how to type them!

      • 1 vote
      Reply#10 - Mon Dec 3, 2007 12:16 PM EST
      Wheel

      How is this in any way a 'war on the bill of rights'? If anything, it celebrates the BOR - Hershey has the freedom to make such an idiotic product - no laws against stupidity.

      Did you read what I wrote, I didn't say this was a war on the bill of rights, I said the drug war is a war on the bill of rights. Sorry I don't know how to make the little accent mark, kudos on your knowledge of keyboards.

      As for:

      There is a difference between saying you are not allowed to do something and that you shouldn't do something

      , what does that have to do with my post?

      And thanks for your charming tone and gracious reply.

      :)

      • 2 votes
      Reply#11 - Mon Dec 3, 2007 12:30 PM EST
      Steve Webel

      How was I to know you were not commenting on this story, but rather making a comment on an issue not being discussed? I agree, if you take my comments out of the context of this discussion, they don't make sense. However, I thought you were saying criticism of Hershey was a 'war on the bill of rights' - so in that context, my comments do make sense.

        Reply#12 - Mon Dec 3, 2007 10:18 PM EST
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