A very disturbing new trend is taking shape among youth today and that trend is smoking and or snorting ground up candy, yes candy, like Smarties. Sounds unbelievable doesn’t it? Read more about it below, see photos, and actual videos of kids doing this dangerous activity.
Smarties Candy: Kids Smoke and Snort Them
It’s taking place in homes, lunchrooms, playgrounds and classrooms across the country. Kids are smoking or snorting candy.
It sounds bizarre, even impossible. But kids are grinding up pieces of candy, like “Smarties” the ones we all grew up on, and they are actually inhaling the fine candy powder then blowing it out like cigarette smoke or even snorting it like cocaine. Obviously this behavior is mimicking dangerous and illegal habits, but kids often do what’s “in” to fit in.
Kids also think this is very cool.
So cool that kids of all ages – from elementary to high school – make YouTube videos by the dozens showing the how-to’s of smoking Smarties and even snorting Smarties. I had no trouble finding them and there are two such videos you can watch below the fold. Of course, we know that having popular YouTube videos ensure the kids making them become instant celebrities with their peer groups.
This hip new trend is dangerous. Mark Shikowitz, who is a Long Island ear nose and throat specialist, treated a 9-year-old who had pieces of candy lodged in his nose. The candy eventually dissolved, but Shikowitz said kids could also accidentally inhale the fine powder down the wrong pipe. If the sugar sits in the lungs or in the nasal cavity for a prolonged period of time it could cause an infection.
“That irritation can cause you to cough, can cause you to laryngospasm, which is your voice box spasming and closing. Any time you have a substance such as sugar in these areas, which are moist, it creates a terrific growth medium for bacteria,” Shikowitz said.
Experts also worry that this trend could become a gateway to sparking interest in real cigarettes or illegal drugs. Well, duh. The company that manufactures Smarties said it “regrets that a negative message of this type has been sent to young people.”
Unbelievable.
More Photos and Videos from ‘Smarties: Kids Smoking and Snorting Candy’ are below.
Smarties Candy: Kids Smoke and Snort Them Photos
How To Snort Smarties Video
How To Smoke Smarties Video
April 11th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
candy is analagous to adult drugs and the behaviors mimic each other with not so different effects. Halloween is the hog heaven of juvenile candytude, just as weekends in the college dorm are beer bashes ending up with snoring to the early morning farm channel. Candy is the gateway to adult drugs, including beer, cigarettes, and caffeine, and in fact caffeine is in chockolet. When you give a kid a candy snack of some sort you are opening up the gateway to hard core drugs to them. Its best to teach responsible use of candy then, cookies, cake and ice cream, cupcakes, and various candied food products when they are young so they learn some self discipline and management of drug seeking skills as they move onto later stages in life. Teach responsible sweet use early and you will raise a better, if not saintly, child.
April 11th, 2009 at 11:48 pm
[...] opinion link: click there Tags: caffeine, candy, drugs, gateway, sweet, [...]
April 12th, 2009 at 7:32 am
Oh Brian, Crust o mighty give your crap a rest would you ?
In my 15 years of working with addicts and alcoholics I’ve never heard such an incredibly stupid reasoning behind the cause of addiction.
You don’t have the foggiest idea of what your talking about.
If as kid is raised with dietary habits as you mention the likely hood that he will be an overeater addicted to food will be far greater than that of him going the way of drugs and alcohol.
Learned behaviors tied to anything such as eating, hygiene, consuming, sex, risk taking, don’t always result in being gateways to hard core drugs. They usually end up being an addiction that reflects an exaggerated form of that activity itself.
The kid who’s not raised to health conscious will be the overeater, the kid who’s subjected to an over emphasis on hygiene may end up with compulsive disorders, the kid who’s raised in a promiscuous family might be the one with a sex addiction, but cases that stem from this type of upbringing are rare in that most addictions are genetically implanted from the start and just about anything in the course of ones life could set them off.
I spent years blaming my parents for my addictions because I was raised in a promiscuous environment getting high at 15 or 16 with my parents until I grew up and realized it was none of their fault at all (that’s when I became a conservative ) and the real fault was inside the fact that I JUST LIKED GETTING HIGH !!!
Unfortunately it took frickin 30 years to figure that out
April 12th, 2009 at 8:28 am
And if anything its marijuana that’l make ya sit around and eat 5 pounds o mounds.
Anyway, I lost track of myself, went to wash the dishs and realized I never said what I was going to say because I got crosseyed looking at Brians remark.
These kids arent getting high. Thats what needs to be taken into account here. This is like playing dress up in your parents clothes. Just because you threw on your moms bra once doesnt mean you’re going to be a tranny the rest of your life.
Now, if there was a buzz connected to this I could see some need to be concerned that the kids were being teased by some cranial foreplay where they get a little fuzzy or disenchanted for a second like when we used to suck all the gas out of a whole case of whipped cream. That kinda crap will usually give you a good clue as to who your future addicts are gonna be.
Oh, Brian, theres not enough caffiene in a chocolate bar to get off a gnat.
The most caffiene you’ll find in chocolate is in the darker ones and kid usually hate those because they’re bitter, have less cream in them and little sugar.
Flavanols which are the theraputic ingredient in cocoa can counter whatever minor effects the minuscule amounts of caffiene might cause.
As a matter of fact theres a whole new field opening up to the benefits of chocolate that I’m sure we’ve all seen on some news special at one time or another where its a female host going bonkeres because now she has an excuse to eat all the choicolate in the world.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-02/wsw-fic021607.php
“During the session entitled “The Neurobiology of Chocolate: A Mind-Altering Experience?,” a panel of scientists presented evidence from several recent studies that demonstrated the enhanced brain blood flow after study participants consumed a specially formulated flavanol-rich cocoa beverage that was supplied by Mars, Incorporated. One study, conducted by Ian A. Macdonald, PhD, from the University of Nottingham Medical School in the United Kingdom, found that the consumption of this cocoa resulted in regional changes in blood flow in study participants, suggesting that cocoa flavanols may have therapeutic potential for the treatment of vascular impairments within the brain itself.”
April 12th, 2009 at 11:17 am
This article would have made more sense if it had been posted about 10 days ago. April Fool’s Day is on the first, not the eleventh.
April 12th, 2009 at 11:35 am
Yea Aroth, we have to be careful what days we worry about our kids health so it makes sense.
April 12th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
yes chockolet, especially dark low butter fat content chockolet is both tasty and they say good for you(minus the fat of course) and sugar if your diabetic, and the little salt if your a high blood pressure person and any additional weight gain if you eat palm fuls daily like mints and bon bons constantly. I like a dark chockelet myself, but must say it was a gateway to milk chockolet as if you eat an assorted lil chocklet set up with dark and milk chockolet, start with the dark first and work your way to the milk chockolet. That is all a gate way is. So candy, creates an instant kid party, much like a six pack will when they get older and just like little bicycles go to driving their pickup trucks to their landscape gardening and carpentry jobs. Just like playing jacks on a sidewalks comes into tossing percussion grenades when they sign up for the force. These are all gateways. Root beer to beer. hot dogs to filet mignon. french fries to baked potatoes with sour cream and chives and bacon bits and scallions. What isn’t a gateway? What you want to do is avoid the wrong gate keepers. lollipop to liquouice to slim jim isn’t too bad. Its a great lite snack. Or elevate them from boiled hot dogs to cream cheese on celery with olives, or even peanut butter when they manufacture that again after hosing down the nut pits. So given that gateways are real, we must consider then the “gateway keeper” as our logical coach in our next consumer product placement.
April 12th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
mickey,
cliff clavin is the gateway to idiocy
April 12th, 2009 at 11:09 pm
hey Hoss ole fellar, fixing up that shed to dry the indian corn in? hear solar is the way to go, drys em kernals out good. hear solar is gonna be big 150 years from now. our horses will like eaten them grains for our trek to Virginia citie. going mule ranching this year?
April 13th, 2009 at 6:01 am
This is something new? I remember in like 5th grade (which would have been around 1995), it was pretty popular to snort kool aid powder during recess.
Obviously this is a reaction to the ambiguous but powerful draw toward drug use that these kids feel. This certainly has something to do with the glamorization of drug use in TV, movies, and music, but that isn’t the whole story.
Kids become very rebellious when they reach adolescence, particularly when they feel they are being lied to or mistrusted. The rampant misinformation and outright lies that are part of programs like DARE (and, really, drug prohibition in general) inevitably will lead kids to mimic behavior they see as exotic or prohibited.
In a time when kids have virtually unfettered access to all sorts of viewpoints over the internet, it’s dangerous to cram an extreme, unquestioned viewpoint down their throats (or up their noses, as it were). The idea that kids want to do what isn’t allowed is a cliche at this point, and yet we still stick with the same, tired strategies. This isn’t a surprise at all.
April 13th, 2009 at 7:21 am
Brian, your argument is stupid in that if every kid who pigged out on candy during Halloween, Christmas,Easter whatever turned into some kind of addict we would have the anarchy that you’ve always dreamed of.
I speak from first hand knowledge and a little thing called passing the certification examination for alcohol and drug Abuse counselors.
Sit down and shut up.
I remember the candy cigarettes and cigars we “ALL” played with and ate as children didnt turn us “ALL” into smokers.
Were raising our kids in a society where were fricking wrapping them on bubble wrap and not allowing them to see for themselves what idiots they are sometimes. Ya know, theres a whole nuther approach to this that many are forgetting and that is that many times these experiences often steer these kids away from dumb behavior. The first time I smoked a cigarette I didnt ever want any part of it againg until I was much older and the peer pressure around me was of a different caliber.
And it went really well with a bottle of Jack
April 13th, 2009 at 7:38 am
Rhayader ya
i remember some kids (the dopey ones) snorting pixie stix and junk like that but where this has turned more serious is when those dopey kids have become the cool ones because now they have how-to youtube vids.
April 13th, 2009 at 7:52 am
@kate: Eh, yeah I guess; although in the world of high school cliques, students that are viewed as “dopey” by some kids are viewed as “cool” by just as many kids. That was true long before YouTube came around.
In my personal experience with the pixie stix/kool aid powder stuff, I seem to remember it was the “cool” kids who were mostly doing it.
April 13th, 2009 at 8:47 am
Just like playing jacks on a sidewalks comes into tossing percussion grenades when they sign up for the force.”
“Root beer to beer ”
Yea, sex with a real live woman will be a gateway to rape ? Or flying a kite will lead designing and launching ICBMs ? that’s “YOUR” warped thinking.
Its called growing up ! Jeez, do you have kids ? I hope not. Poor suckers probably doomed to wearing diapers and sitting in a car seat til hes 21.
Dont want him to learn to use toilet paper, he might become an eco terrorist ?
And the facts are that kids who indulge in the eating of candy are the ones who grow up with eating habits that lead to food addictions more often than substance abuse.
Kids have always been kids at the same emotional growth rate they’ve always maintained in relation to their surroundings.
Exposure to elements that can either stunt or stimulate emotional growth have always been everywhere. When no Internet was around they found other ways to seek out these stimulations and were shorted on them as well as negligent parents have always been around before technology.
Because we play doctor when we are kids doesn’t guarantee we’ll grow up to stick whatever we can find up someone’s a$$.
There have always been the cool kids much in the same proportions we see today. We just see more of these idiots due the technology that makes it accessible/viral and so the reaction is that its more rampant than it used to be.
We used to just see these idiots in our school or neighborhood whereas now we get to see them in so many kinds of media it seems like there’s a larger proportion of them.
When really, what’s happening is were just allowed to see more of it now, there isn’t necessarily more of it.
Granted, technology does play a role in developing more of this behavior but I don’t think it takes away from the over reaction we see in a society that’s shielding its kids from every possible growing experience there is.
Kids cant duke it out anymore, have to be PC in school, sh*t ! they cant even keep score at games.
Then there’s the other side of this.
Where the hell are the parents these days ?
Its like there’s no moderation, they’re either MIA or overbearing.
April 14th, 2009 at 4:20 am
[...] Smarties: Kids Smoking, Snorting Candy » Right Pundits [...]
April 14th, 2009 at 10:56 am
The candy industry needs a bail out to educate kids on the correct way to consume their product. Please contact the White house and your members of Congress. Tell them ‘Enough is Enough. And that I believe the children are our are future and we want them candy free.
Mr. Obama talk to our kids. They will listen to you. Just say-”Chew and Swallow”.
April 15th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
You are a clown do you think your cool snorting candy like honestly get a life
June 2nd, 2009 at 10:45 am
hhahahahahahahahah
June 17th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
hey why dont you all shut the hell up because this isn’t a joke. this is real crap and it can mess you up. today i just found up my ousin did it and i’m pretty mad so dont joke about it! and micky go f*** ur self for that
October 12th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
people at my skool snort up the candy, its weird, i dont see the point to it, they dont look cool sending a puff of candy smoke into the air!!! its lame and creepy, haha. yea us middle schoolers are so weird but maybe you parents should be happy that its candy instead of drugs!!
October 23rd, 2009 at 4:49 pm
so, my kid did this… It’s real and awful. The complications that can come from it are not serious, but still complications. Lung infection isn’t something to laugh at. Maybe he learned his lesson but at 10 years old, it’s a lesson he shouldn’t have learned for quite some time. I hear people saying “yeah, kids did that in junior high and high school when I was in school. I don’t know many who didn’t.” Well, jr high and high school are NOT elementary school. It’s getting earlier and earlier. It’s sad but it’s true. Simulating drug use is bad at ANY age.