These moddlycoddled cream puff kids today. Back when I was young, kids were kids and we smoked real kids’ cigarettes. By “smoked” I mean upwrapped and chewed and by “cigarettes” I mean bubblegum or candy sticks of variously unpalatable substances, of course.
Back then you could ape that greaseball your older sister dated by rolling up the pack in the bicep of your t-shirt, or by tucking a single behind your ear like Kenickie. These days, it’s all carrot sticks and cuddle-wuddles.
I say, it’s time to stop talking about the good ol’ days and revive them by popping these babies into the little tykes’ mouths and lighting up! Figuratively speaking. Of course that’s harder and harder, what with this whole “smoking kills” rap and not wanting to encourage cancer-sticks among primary-schoolers.
The few stores where I’ve found candy cigarettes have been in my home state of Texas (woohoo! it ROCKS to be Texan). Contrary to what you might think, we don’t have candy guns there, because obviously the handgrip would already be melting by the time you put the barrel in your mouth.
Now candy cigarettes have been officially banned in the US by the Family Smoking Prevention and Control Act, as of June. (Apparently it’s candy cigarettes that predispose kids to use the real ones. All I can say is, thank goodness it’s not that whole “rebel against authority” or “it looks cool” schtick, because that would be a whole lot harder to root out.)
You can still buy Big League Chew, the bubble gum that resembles chewing tobacco, but where’s the appeal in that? Humphrey Bogart leaning over to Lauren Bacall and placing a wad of tobacco inside her bottom lip? It’s hardly a sexy scene cribbed from To Have and Have Not.
What’s surprising about confectionery cigarettes isn’t that you can still occasionally pick them up in a few out of the way places (I got my latest stash in a general store in Gruene, Texas, a fantastic little town outside of Austin that you’d be crazy to miss next time you’re there. It’s slogan: “Gently resisting change since 1872”). What’s surprising is, with Mad Men reviving smoking’s status, that candy cigs aren’t sold in duty-free cartons with a picture of Don Draper on the box.
Next thing you know, they’ll outlaw kiddie high balls and then where will we be?
Very important candy cigarette resources:
* The most awesome and hilarious gallery of candy cigarettes ever
* A Sally Mann photograph entitled “Candy Cigarette”
* You can order: Candy Sticks by Barrett at chocolatebuttons.co.uk
* Or Candy Sticks in a Tom and Jerry pocket pack
* UPDATE: Suzie Grogan’s (comment below) post on retro candies
Best of all, emphysema sold separately!
My stash from Gruene: Are these packs referencing the cigarette packs of Viceroy, Lucky Strike and Marlboro, right down to the tax stamp? Nah….
Above: Machismo, for manly men aged 5 to 11. I picked these up at the Big Texan Steak House in Amarillo where you can enjoy a postprandial bubble gum cigarette after your 72oz steak.
I have blogged on retro sweets too over at nowriggling and I found that some of the sweets we knew and loved contained stuff they wouldn’t let kids have now. Trouble is, that is what made them taste so good!
Suzie, thanks for the post. I’ve added your link to the list of must-have illicit-candy resources.
I remember those things. In the north east of England cigarettes are also called tabs, so they were Candy Tabs. And they tasted disgusting too!
AWESOME! I loved them as a kid. Oh talk about bringing back memories. Oh so fond ones! I am just about to click and order some. Wicked post. x
Oh, I remember sweet cigarettes (I’m in the UK). I see they’re still being made but without the red tip – how stupid! I used to love them – and also the strange ‘sweet tobacco’ which, if I remember rightly, was some odd mixture of dessicated coconut and brown colouring. Mind you, in the 1950’s I think everything was made out of dessicated coconut.
Val is right, you do still get those sweet cigarettes, but they’re not called cigarettes any more, they’re called something like “candy sticks”. Sweet cigarettes were banned a long time ago in the UK, I think. Another kind of fake cigarette I remember from my childhood was a chocolate one wrapped in rice paper. Those are long gone too.
I loved those candy smokes! I haven’t thought about them in years. Are they the reason I started smoking? Who knows? In the ’70s, cigarette advertising was everywhere and of course I wanted to “come a long way baby” just like the women who smoked Virginnia Slims. But my children who saved me; I quit the day after the line turned blue… anyway, I can still remember, fondly, those chalky sweet sticks. (sigh)
But nowadays Electric cigarette is the all new alternative smoking solution that is taking the world by storm.