Parents Smoking Mad Over Pot-Shaped Candy

Would you buy your child a marijuana leaf-shaped (but totally drug-free) lollipop? One aghast Buffalo parent most definitely would not—and after she alerted the City Council to the controversial candy, city leaders and anti-drug activists started working to get it off shelves. “It's the whole idea that it promotes drugs and the idea that, here, you'll look cool if you use this—which is what gets these kids in trouble in the very first place,” says one treatment center supervisor. But the president of Kalan LP, which distributes the candy, insists this is the first complaint he’s gotten.

Pothead Ring Pots, Pothead Lollipops, and Pothead Sour Gummy Candy are sold in 1,000 stores nationwide and are doing “pretty well,” the president adds. But that may not last: After a Buffalo City Council member said last week he would not grant licenses to stores planning to sell the merchandise, the AP could not find any being sold at a half-dozen local stores. Kalan LP’s president acknowledges that the candy promotes marijuana legalization, but it contains no illegal ingredients. “It's just candy,” he says. “It's sour apple flavor, it doesn't claim to be pot in disguise or anything like that.” (More marijuana stories.)