Poisoned Halloween Candy Isn’t a Thing
Warning messages seem to pop up every year just before Halloween: “Don’t let your little ghouls and boys be fooled – with poisoned candy that can kill them! Stay tuned for full news at 11. “I’ve heard the same warnings ever since I was a kid trying to breathe through Big Bird’s plastic mask.
More recently, New Jersey saw a twist in the urban trick or treat legend in 2017, urging parents to watch out for people who slip marijuana-flavored treats on their kids this Halloween. While this is a little different from the old “razor blades hidden in a chocolate bar,” it’s a topical tip for an annual reminder: it doesn’t really happen. As usual. According to Snopes , there have been no confirmed cases of candy poisoning by strangers on Halloween.
Where, then, does fear arise at all? Over the years, Snopes reports, there have been incidents initially reported as accidental Halloween candy poisoning that ended up being something else. The most famous incident that may have prompted your moms and dad to carefully examine your Halloween prey while you waited in agony was when a man named Ronald Clark O’Brian killed his son with a cyanide pixie stick in 1974. and then tried to convince the police that the boy got her on the trail of a trick or treat. Very few foreign objects were also found in Halloween candy, although the vast majority of stories about things like the needles hidden in Twix bars turned out to be false.
I’m paranoid. As a parent, you spend 364 days a year teaching your kids to never, ever accept candy from people they don’t know, and then bam, it’s October 31st and you think, “ Never mind, here’s a bag, go crazy. ‘ It’s nervous. But of the many things to watch out for on Halloween – say, the fact that kids eat an average of three cups of sugar at the holiday – your neighbors poisoning your kids with spoiled Tootsie Pops really shouldn’t be one of them. (Also, come on , no one wastes their expensive edibles on your tiny vampire. Just trust.)