Lollipop Lickers

Unlike cocktail-flavored jellybeans and Coca-Cola, of course, pot pops are marketed based on their drug connection, under slogans such as "tastes like the real deal" and "every lick is like taking a hit." Yet the distributors plausibly maintain that their target market is young adults in the 18-to-24 range for whom cannabis already has positive connotations. "It's not just a candy," says the Chronic Candy slogan. "It's a lifestyle." Although some customers may genuinely like the taste of marijuana, people who buy these products are also making a fashion or political statement.

Those statements understandably offend supporters of the war on drugs, who try to conceal their censorious aims by pretending it's all about the children. Crawford, whose group's Web site features a photo of an angry-looking baby sucking on a bright green lollipop, suggests that cannabis-flavored candy may "fall into the hands of unsuspecting youth" and "serve as a gateway product for future marijuana use." A Pennsylvania legislator says "it is really frightening to develop a taste for marijuana in children through lollipops."

Such warnings fundamentally misconstrue the appeal of both marijuana (which people do not smoke mainly for its flavor) and candy that tastes like it. It's marijuana that makes the candy cool, not the other way around.

And what makes marijuana cool? To a large extent, the government's efforts to prevent its consumption. The legal moves against marijuana-flavored candy can be expected to have a similar effect.