You'll Only Get Sugar High From Pot Suckers

P.T. Barnum once said a sucker is born every minute. I wish he were still alive to get a load out of Pot Suckers, an idea that sounds half-baked.

Pot Suckers are lollipops flavored with hemp essential oil, but they do not contain the hallucinogenic compound found in real reefer. Still, the candy features advertising slogans such as "Every lick is like taking a hit." Due to such bold statements, many stores pulled the pot product from candy shelves across the country amid accusations Pot Suckers glorify drug use to children. Six states threatened to ban Pot Suckers.

Since they are just regular candy, I assume the dope lollipops will probably have the same effect regular sugar-heavy suckers have on kids - make them overly giggly, sometimes hallucinagenic (Example: imaginary friends), and work up a killer appetite (usually making them hungry only for more candy).

ICUP, the Jersey-based "dealer," suspended distribution of the Pot Suckers and has held up plans to release a hemp-flavored chocolate Buzz candy bar. The company president said the novelty candies were not meant to target kids, but the adults who make up 70 percent of candy consumers in the U.S.

Lawmakers should just chill, dude. Let parents do the parenting. JUST SAY NO if you don't want your kid to lick a pot sucker. Maybe they need to run those Just Say No drug commercials again with the eggs. The guy holds up an egg and says "This is your brain", then cracks the egg and fries it and says "This is your brain on drugs." All they would have to do is add a side of bacon and say "And this is your tongue if you lick a Pot Sucker!"

I also don't understand why these people are focusing on just Pot Suckers when Big League Chew, a shredded bubble gum kept in a zip-lock bag like it's Redman, glorifies chewing tobacco. Go to any little league baseball game, and I guarantee you'll see some 7-year-old stuff a wad of Big League Chew the size of a baseball in his mouth and proceed to suck on it and spit it out over the next 6 innings (when he isn't scratching his nuts raw to try and imitate his favorite Major League ball player).

Candy and its resulting sugar highs can be just as dangerous as drugs. Some people claim to be choc-o-holics. I believe it. Somewhere right now, there is a meeting at a community center and someone is saying "Hello, my name is Linda, and I'm a choc-o-holic. I'm here because I made out with a bushel bag of Hershey Kisses in the back seat of my car last night. My husband made me come in here as soon as he rubbed off the brown ring around my mouth with a washcloth."

Believe me, overcoming chocolate addiction is a life-long battle (that I still haven't won). Anyone who thinks quitting chocolate cold turkey is a cakewalk is lying (and anyone who hates cakewalks because they combine your addictions to cheesy music, gambling and eating cake, I am starting a support group called Cakewalkers Anonymous).

Take it from me, I am a recovering candy-used-to-promote-adult-activities addict. I chain smoked candy cigarettes for 7 years until I was 12. I had to quit cold turkey because I couldn't find them at stores anymore. I wish they would have had some sort of patch available to lessen the blow. Maybe if I taped a pack of Sweet & Lo to my arm, it would have done the trick. Instead, I turned to Fruit Stripe as my candy cigarette nicotine gum alternative.
But then I discovered bubble gum cigarettes, and I was hooked again. These were rolled in paper and had powder inside so when you blew inside of them, bubble gum "smoke" would come out. Unlike regular cigarette smokers, bubble gum cigarette smokers' lungs get pinker, misleading doctors on how unhealthy their habit has become. And don't even get me started on the dangers of second-hand bubble gum smoke, which my sister inhaled for at least 2-3 years (especially on one car trip when she bitched to our parents that I wasn't on "my side" of the back seat, so I'd blow "smoke" in her face from behind the line the whole 10-hour drive from Bismarck, N.D., to Iowa).

We're probably lucky Pot Suckers were weeded out from candy shelves. It would only lead to some kid being disappointed when he buys Blow Pops. There's no cocaine inside the suckers, only bubble gum, but the name implies a helluva lot more street value than a quarter.

What about Tootsie Pops? Apparently no drugs are encased in those suckers, either, just a tootsie (not quite enough in there for a roll). But it does make you wonder if it's really just Tootsie in there. In the old advertisements for this sucker, a kid goes into the woods and asks different critters how many licks it will take him to get to the center. This insinuates the kid is on something before even taking a lick of the Tootsie Pop.

The first critter, Mr. Turtle, speaking like a true snapper, admits he can "never make it without biting." He advises the little sucker junkie to talk to Mr. Owl. But instead of just answering the kid's question, Mr. Owl snatches the sucker away and says "Let's find out. Ah-one, ah-two, ah-three" before deep-beaking the whole thing. Then he hands the poor little bastard his sucker stick back with no candy on it and no concrete answer to his question. How many licks does it take? The world may never know. But one thing the world does know is that hooty fuck can never make it past three licks, so there must be some really good shit under that hard sucker candy.

If Pot Suckers weather the storm and return to the market, think of the floodgates this could open for products with drug-themed names and marketing campaigns. It's downright scary to think your snack aisle might be filled with the following...

GUMMI SHROOMS - It started out with bears, but now about anything can be turned into a gummi including dolphins, worms, spiders, and many different kinds of fruit shapes. Eat one Gummi Shroom, and who knows what shapes the rest of your gummis will take.

METHY WAY - There's nothing like the nougat and caramel mixed with household cleaners cut with a hint of baby formula to make these bars, which are produced in mini labs across the nation.

7-UPPERS - These are the old wax bottles that contain liquid uppers to give kids that extra boost of energy that Red Bull just can't deliver.

BEER BOTTLE CAPS - Catch the flavor of all your favorite suds including Killians, Budweiser, Foster's, etc.

POP ROCK COCAINE - Pop rocks are back with more punch. Just don't mix inside a can of Coke because some kid died when he did that.

JUJUPCP - What's better than fruit flavored bits of angel dust?

BIT O HEROIN - This heroin is processed until it is hard and chewy, then formed into bit chunks. The good news: No more track marks!

ECSTASY CREAM EGGS - Inside this egg shaped candy is a wonderful ecstasy pill surrounded by a creamy "yolk." Great for raves.

$100,000 BRICK - The makers of the $100,000 bar now make a 2.2-pound brick of chocolate hashish worth a cool 100 G's. The problem is, the rich kids who can afford it view the brick as only one serving and typically OD.

SPEED GUMBALL - The most dangerous gumball, which mixes cocaine with heroin in scores of flavors.

CRACK JACKS - Some smooth sailor will say there's a surprise inside every box, goldilocks! Not any more, you cracker jack whore!

LITTLE DEBBIE POT BROWNIES - Leave it to Little Debbie to cash in on the drug snack cake market in an attempt to show up Hostess cornering the prostitute candy consumers with their Ho-Hos.