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Candy Cigarettes - Sweet, Smokey, and Suspiciously Chalky · Dirt Nap City - History's Most Interesting Dead People

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Hey there, Kelly.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: How are you?
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm doing great, Alex.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: How are you doing?
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm doing good.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to share a dead end with you today.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I love dead ends.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm super excited because yeah, these are great to bring up at parties.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: They're great to talk about while you're enjoying a nice, refreshing can of liquid death.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's so many things you can do with dead ends.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Here we go with the liquid death again.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, one time I was thinking recently about something that uh used to be kind of uh big when we were kids.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: If you were a child of the um probably bigger if you're a little older than us, but uh six months.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it used to be uh uh kind of a um a taboo piece of fun for little kids.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Hula hoo.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: And and it's something that is some people would consider like a major concern, but mostly when I say these two words together, they kind of will make you laugh, I think.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, what what what do you got?
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Candy cigarettes.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: How ridiculous, how ridiculous are candy cigarettes?
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm gonna tell you that my my grandmother hated those things.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think I had some one time and she came completely unglued when she saw me.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: And the part of the reason is she's a very religious woman who didn't.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: Were you hanging out like James Dean?
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: Just like but my grandfather, her husband, smoked, and so she really did not like the fact that I was pretending to smoke with a candy cigarette.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you just wanted to be cool, right?
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to be like grandpa, yeah.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: He was he was large and in charge.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Were you standing against a wall with one one foot against the wall?
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: No, just kind of leaning.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: I actually remember the moment, I remember a moment anyway, where I got scolded and almost slapped, um, like slapped out of my hand.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: We were we were at a diner in Goodland, Kansas, and my grandfather lit up a cigarette, which you could do at a diner back then, and I was sitting next to him, and I pulled out my candy cigarette and put it in my mouth, and oh my grandmother just Where did you get powers?
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: What you should have rolled the pack up in your white t-shirt, too.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: I had the guns back then.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, candy cigarettes have been around as long as like the late 19th century, and but those didn't seem so bad back then because smoking wasn't really seen as a health concern back then, you know.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't until later on that we learned uh the the hazards of of smoking.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: So just to be clear, if you're not um as old as uh me and Kelly, um candy cigarettes were made of chalky sugar, uh sometimes gum, sometimes chocolate, like especially they have chocolate, uh they have uh candy cigars that are made out of chocolate.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: They were pretty awful candy, actually.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like I did not like the taste.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times the tip was red to like look like it was lit.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: And the really good ones, the cool ones, had were covered in powdered sugar, so that when you blow on it, it would make like smoke.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: I never I never realized that.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: I never I never I think I did have some that were covered in powdered sugar, and I didn't realize that you were supposed to blow.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, when you blow it, it would make it look like you're smoking.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: What is so research?
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I got a question.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: What is a little little red tip um of the cigarette called?
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: The the the lit part.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like there's a word is that the cherry?
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: The cherry.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's yes, thank you.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um well, research that they did um in the 60s showed that candy cigarettes really did prime kids to smoke.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: The kids that uh enjoyed candy cigarettes were six times as likely to take up smoking when they got older.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and this would probably be like you're using candy cigarettes when you're eight and you're smoking by the time you're 11 or 12.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: So my grandmother really saved me.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now, that doesn't mean necessarily that it would that it was a gateway to smoking.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: It could be that people that are attracted to candy cigarettes are already planning to smoke.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's the same drivers that are making them do one are making them do the other.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, really that report really freaked people out, especially since in 1964 the Surgeon General's report came out.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's the one that linked um tobacco use to cancer and yeah, um, the one that changed everything, the one that put the labels on uh on cigarettes.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: The thing is that you might not realize is that candy cigarettes were made by tobacco companies, that they were the ones, and then sometimes they weren't, but they would still like send their labels to the tobacco companies.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh sometimes the labels would be a little off, so like Marlboro was just called Marlboro without an L.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Camel cigarettes were called Acmel.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Winston was spelled with a U instead of an O, but it was like the labels looked exactly like the actual cigarettes.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's the thing that kids really loved is that not just the cigarette in the mouth, but the whole pack and and all that stuff.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now it might surprise you to learn that despite it being a dead end, candy cigarettes are not banned in the US.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: They are still legal as hell.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: You can go to a candy store or a convenience store, um, and they're not actually banned in the U.S.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know where I got that from, maybe just because we used to see them and then we didn't, but we were kids and then we're not, so I just assume that they were banned.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: The only um, you know, the um the FDA um well is FDA um food and drug.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: I guess it's the ATF probably that regulates uh because that's the tea and ATF, right?
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um they don't regulate candy.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: So um they aren't the only law that's kind of similar is that um there is a law that says you're not allowed to put any flavors in cigarettes except for menthol in the US.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: That they didn't want to go down a road where they were being so attractive to kids that they were making them in strawberry flavor and watermelon flavor and those different things.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: Along came vaping.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: Which is all those flavors.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's probably how they get around that.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: But in in in the US, you are not allowed to have any flavor besides menthol for your cigarettes.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um they still exist all over the country.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: They are banned in the state of Tennessee.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's yeah, I would I would have guessed California.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: And in the city of St.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Paul, Minnesota, they are also banned.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um like to buy them or to to just have one in your hand.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: To sell them, yeah.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like I wonder if you could I wonder if you could just stroll through town with a with a candy cigarette hanging out of your lips.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: If you're like six years old.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, probably.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no, not in St.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Paul.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: No, they don't play.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um now there are there is a law that says they're not allowed to call them cigarettes.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: They're not allowed to call them candy cigarettes.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: They call them sticks, like candy sticks.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that's that's enough to to get out of it.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I was looking and and I was thinking, you know, there's other things that are similar to candy cigarettes that are out there.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um the biggest, the most popular and most successful being big league chew.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Familiar with the big league chew?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it was actually pretty good gum.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: I remember I remember having having it, and it was like really chewy, it was very juicy, it was it it that the flavor lasted a long time.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: And it was also coated in powdered sugar.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: That was to make it not stick.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, whereas candy cigarettes kind of get the reputation of being a gateway to real cigarettes, big league chew, just the opposite.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: They were it was seen as a healthy alternative to tobacco that especially among kids that played baseball, they were emulating their their um heroes who were um there was a big tobacco chewing problem baseball players back in the 70s and 80s.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and big league chew turned people against that.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: They could still put a big wad in their mouth, but it was healthy because healthier because it was gum.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it was seen.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, they have a partnership with Major League Baseball, they have a partnership with uh baseball hall of fame that it's seen as like a good thing in baseball by 2023 they had sold over a billion pouches of big league.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: A billion with a B.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: A billion with a B.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine?
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: So the whole thing with the pouch though is that's how chewing tobacco comes, right?
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: It comes in a kind of pouch.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: So but it doesn't right, and I chewing tobacco, I think, comes in those like discs though.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's snuff.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like like uh you're talking about like uh skull or or the dip.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like that's what the baseball players so so chewing tobacco and dip are two different things, I think.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, chewing tobacco like with the strands, I don't think that's what baseball players were mostly doing.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: No, they were they they were do I've seen I've seen footage of them pulling the pouch out of their pocket and putting it in.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I I don't know that much about it, but I know that the um you know the the chew or the dip is like a pinch between your cheek and gum, right?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, sure.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: Copenhagen skull Copenhagen.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: Copenhagen.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um then but then chewing tobacco I think was even more hardcore.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think that was that was like you you put a big wad of it in there, and the thing that always got me was you had to spit it out, right?
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was like you you just like I don't even know which did you take the flavor in and then you spit it out?
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think that the two would be to want to swallow it.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: Same.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I couldn't imagine.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, I never did that, but a lot of kids in our high school did it.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, if you did need to spit, a nice can of liquid death is the perfect thing for your chewing tobacco spit to go right into liquid death.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: There were some other things that were kind of around that uh kids imitating vice's uh look.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: They had uh bubble pipes.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Do you remember bubble pipes?
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I had a bubble pipe.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: You pretend you're smoking a pipe and you're really just blowing bubbles, yeah.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: But then they had licorice pipes.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever seen a licorice pipe?
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh no, I don't think so.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's uh like more popular in Europe, but there would be a pipe that was shaped like a tobacco pipe made of licorice, and then would have red sugar balls on the head of the pipe, and I guess you just eat it all.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's but you can pretend you're smoking.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh my favorite um was something that just lasted just like a year.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this was not a good idea at all.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: This was in the late 60s.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: This was called Hippy Sippy, and it resembled a syringe and was chocolate pellets that would be like in a syringe kind of container, and they would give you a straw to suck from the container.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: These pellets would be like the size of maybe dippin' dots.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, wow, and they came with a badge that says Hippy Sippy says I'll try anything.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Marketed to children like late 60s.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Not a great idea.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: No, hippie sippy.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: No, but you know what's underrated as far as um this kind of silly novelty candy goes, is bubble tape.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean that's kind of that has a similar taste as the big leg chew.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Six feet of fun is how they market that.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, bubble tape, it comes like uh like a measuring tape, you know?
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Do you ever comes in one of those little discs?
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it and it's and you just roll it off.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: But you know what I like to do?
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: This really drives people crazy.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: Because you open it up, there's like a little there's like a little latch on the round disc.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: You pull it out and then just bite into the side of it and put it back.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that would drive me crazy if you did that.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, hey, you want some bubble tape?
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: So you're a current consumer of bubble tape.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I probably had it in the last year or two.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe, maybe, maybe it was something that was at somebody's office.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I don't remember.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I I think I did it the normal way.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: I just pulled about, you know, six inches off, ripped it, and chewed it.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'd say that um I'd say if you get a chance to go back to the uh candy cigarette, um buy a pack.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's probably not gonna lead you to smoking at this point in your life.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Let's hope.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um but um but yeah, I've I've seen the chocolate cigar cigars for like um birth announcements, yeah.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of real cigars.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's interesting to me how candy cigarettes are kind of the villain, big league chew is kind of the hero.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um yet essentially it's the same kind of thing.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's just it's kids trying to be grown up, right?
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, I guess I guess here's the thing.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: If candy cigarettes were marketed as a way to quit smoking, so instead of instead of smoking, you just put a candy cigarette in your mouth and and do that and you know, eat it instead of smoking, that then it might be the hero as well.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: So nicer, if you're listening, team up with liquid death.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: If you could make candy cigarettes and instead of the gum, that sugary gum, take nicer and coat it in powdered sugar so people still feel like they're smoking when they blow into that thing.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it gives the tactile sensation and nicer with your hands.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: Nickerette is a good thing.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and shred it and put it into a pouch like big league chew.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you could you could mash all this stuff up together.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're giving you these ideas free for now, but they're not gonna be free for long.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: No, somebody's gonna jump on this and be a bazillionaire, so don't miss your opportunity.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's all I got.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: Nice.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_03: Sugar sticks in paper wraps, pretend to puff, then snap, snap, snap.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_03: Sweet rebellion in a plastic bag Parents groan, it's just a fate.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_03: But some lip up in smoky hay Candy cigarette, they never quit.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_03: Taste so bad, but there I cool real strange.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_03: Still yeah, they never change.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_03: They never change the ground deals, the secret train, it's changed for a sweet joy.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_03: Tiny rebels in the mascot.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_03: The memory stays, it's wet dreams in the sugar heads, stick fire in the wheel black, wheel streams, straight, little strength, and then you're gonna be able to