I want candy!

Sugar has long been a popular drug consumed and even sold in schools nationwide. But concerns over health, obesity and the risk of diabetes have led some schools in California to institute a ban on sugary snacks. In response to these candy sales bans, some students are starting to deal candy bars on the "underground market" at a marked up price....

Despite their schools' junk-food ban, Jim Nason, principal of Victorville High School, says he sees as much soda and candy as ever. The ineffectiveness of Victorville High's ban on chocolate is not surprising when we consider the much more intense effort by all levels of government to prohibit other potentially harmful substances like illicit drugs.

A personal anecdote posted to the Drug Policy Alliance blog illustrates the situation even more clearly:

My "peers" spent two dollars and fifty cents at one lunch "meal." I didn't have high aspirations to be like them - but I wouldn't mind being able to spend two dollars and fifty cents a day, which I thought of as being rich. Bear in mind, I was a youngster then, not well versed in the ways of money.

But I knew a simple scheme when I saw it, and it came in the form of a candy known as "gum dingers." It was generic bubblegum wrapped in a hard, strawberry candy shell. And rich kids would buy them two for a quarter like they were party pills at the local college. I could buy them bulk at the local supermarket for about twenty to the dollar. Guess where my two-fifty went?

The scheme worked out great, and I became a drug dealer at the local junior high, slanging that candy. It brought me money, and it brought me the drug dealer's friends - people looking to score. They didn't like me, really, but they liked my product, so they had to be nice to me. Which, considering I was that "poor kid," was a big change.

It's just that easy, ladies and gentlemen.