Community Chat

[sunshine45]

you can still buy candy cigarettes.

we bought them, pretended with them, and then ate them as kids. we didnt bring them home though. my parents didnt even like us to use those temporary tattoos when we were young. if my dad caught us with one of those he would take us in the bathroom and watch us scrub it off completely.

my parents didnt smoke, but my grandfather did and so did numerous great uncles and aunts and older cousins.

[MrsSweetieBear]

On 7/24/2014 Nancy Drew said:

On 7/24/2014 ktlynam said:

On 7/24/2014 LipstickDiva said:

I had candy cigarettes when I was little. I loved to pretend I was smoking. Not sure why and I never grew up to be a smoker. I detest cigarette smoke. I remember pretending to smoke with a straw too. Neither of my parents were smokers.

I don't get the big deal. As someone else pointed out, I was allowed to have a tiny sip of beer every once in awhile too. I didn't grow up to be an alcoholic and in fact, I'm not a beer drinker at all.

I remember us neighborhood kids getting together in one kid's garage, setting up a sawhorse w/boards and pretending it was a saloon...complete with all his dad's empty liquor bottles that we'd fill with water. "Set 'em up, bartender!" We'd pretend to be drunk, etc. Just silly stuff.

None of my siblings nor I ended up drinking at all other than a very occasional mixed drink.

We used play "Bonanza". Similar thing. I am not a smoker or a drinker either.

LOL - good ones. I remember dressing up like a floozy, slamming a shot glass on a play table and shouting out "whiskey".

[violann]

My dad smoked 'till I was 9 or 10, and I smoked candy cigarettes. Never even one real one though.

[CardinalGirl]

On 7/24/2014 occasional rain said:

What a lot of nonsense.

Making the harmless play of smoking into a big taboo is just going to make it more appealing. People should be more concerned with their children modeling their pill popping behavior.

Seems a little harsh to say it's "nonsense" to not allow it.

Speaking only from my own experience, it did not make smoking seem more appealing to me....just reinforced that it was not acceptable. I never smoked, my brother never smoked....and none of our children are smokers. Most of my grandchildren are too young, but I do know that my 16-year-old granddaughter is not a smoker, thank goodness.

In any case, though, it really has been interesting to hear different opinions.

[CardinalGirl]

On 7/24/2014 sunshine45 said:

you can still buy candy cigarettes.

we bought them, pretended with them, and then ate them as kids. we didnt bring them home though. my parents didnt even like us to use those temporary tattoos when we were young. if my dad caught us with one of those he would take us in the bathroom and watch us scrub it off completely.

my parents didnt smoke, but my grandfather did and so did numerous great uncles and aunts and older cousins.

If you'll notice, none of those boxes say the word "cigarette" on them. They make them look like cigarette boxes, but they stop short of actually calling them candy cigarettes.

I owned a couple of convenience stores up until a couple of years ago, when we got out of that business. They haven't called them "cigarettes" in many years. They just call them candy sticks.

[sunala]

I don't like fake cigarettes or toy guns

And, now that I think of it, I hate real cigarettes and real guns.

[dreamytoo]

On 7/24/2014 sunala said:

I don't like fake cigarettes or toy guns

And, now that I think of it, I hate real cigarettes and real guns.

and I bet you can tell the difference between the two. You and most kids are able to differentiate between fantasy and reality....

[Kachina624]

I agree with Cardinal Girl that kids imitating smoking behavior is something to be discouraged and shouldn't be treated as being ""cute"". It should be used as a lesson in letting kids know how dangerous and harmful smoking can be. It won't be so cute when the child is 16 and caught with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth.

I actually had a summer job when I was in college working for Philadelphia Chewing Gum where they made those bubble gum cigars.

[dreamytoo]

On 7/24/2014 kachina624 said:

I actually had a summer job when I was in college working for Philadelphia Chewing Gum where they made those bubble gum cigars.

I always loved the banana flavored cigars...

[Nuttmeg]

The candy smokes were cute nice back in the day. Today, I would not want young child pretending to smoke.