My Candy Cigarettes

Last updated on: August 17, 2017 at 9:27 am by John Mark N. Reynolds

My Candy Cigarettes 2017-08-17T09:27:24-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

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This birthday Mom and Dad bought me a box of candy I loved as a child including hard to find candy cigarettes and bubblegum cigars. Wonderful as nostalgia, I have almost finished off the box (wax mustaches! coke bottle candy!), but it is worth asking: did tobacco shaped candy products make us more likely to smoke? Looks like it. Though it did not make me a frequent smoker, I did play detective using the candy cigarettes.*

I do not mourn the fact that candy smokes are now rare and hard for kids to get. They are a happy childhood memory, but one that was not passed down to my children! Smoking is bad enough for a person that encouraging kids to smoke seems like a bad idea.

Big Tobacco and candy makers deny a connection, however, cigarette manufacturers did not protect their copyrights when it came to candy cigarettes. That suggests that while I was playing young Humphrey Bogart, they were hoping to hook me on the grown up product. Call me cynical, but a group that lied about the impact of their product for decades, as Big Tobacco did, does not earn my trust.

Still, I did enjoy sitting in my office one last time being a film noir gumshoe with my “cigarettes!” The idea that generally candy cigarettes should not be in children’s hands today is not very controversial. Pretending to smoke seems likely to contribute to smoking as an adult. Causation is always devilishly hard to prove. For some reason, however, when it comes to entertainment of any kind, the suggestion that pretending to be violent might cause an increase in aggression brings down wrath.

There is evidence it is true. Since people like playing violent video games and there is an entire industry built around such games, many people look for any good reason to dismiss the connection. People are also prone to “moral panics,” seeing a new piece of technology or media, and deciding it will destroy society.

Surely, however, the scarcity of candy cigarettes could be due to moral panic as well? Just like Big Tobacco, the video game industry does not have the best track record when it comes to social responsibility and truth the telling: go look at game reviews. If games do cause an increase in aggression (and it looks like they do), then as a cause, they are much lower than other causes such as growing up in a violent or aggressive family.

But then surely candy cigarettes are much less likely to cause smoking than growing up in a family of smokers?

We banned candy cigarettes anyway, because nobody needs a candy cigarette. The risks to children were not worth the right to sell any candy a man wishes. Why then are we harder on candy cigarettes than violent video games?

Leave violent video games aside. Why do we let ad companies pitch to children? We know children are less rational, less able to resist a pitch. We do not let children make adult decisions for this reason. Why do we let multi-billion dollar corporations sell to kids? Shouldn’t ads be directed at adults?

Do not be distracted by a discussion of government censorship. If we assume government should not censor ads, video games, or force candy companies not to sell candy cigarettes, shouldn’t we quit anyway? Advertisers have codes of ethics. Video games are made by people. Candy doesn’t have to be made, even if we have a legal ability to make it. There are some things we cannot control as parents, but the candy and games we buy are in our power.

When I told some younglings we used to have candy cigarettes, and showed them my pack, they were horrified. Maybe they were right, but it was hard to hear their concern over the gunfire from the first person shooter or the high definition sounds of violence against women from an episode of Game of Thrones.

———

*I have been known to smoke a pipe on a holiday or a cigar at a special dinner.

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