The Hershey Chocolate Company has decided to use a new controversial item to aid in drawing attention to their products, cocaine. The company known for producing tasty treats for children was under fire by many judges, police officers and parents in Pennsylvania for distributing a new product that resembles cocaine.
The candy, pictured above, is actually two thin breath strips with a dissolvable powdered mint sweetener in the center. The mint melts on the tongue similar to breath strips that are currently on the market. Hershey’s reps state that the product was not intended to simulate anything at all. They have emphasized that the PACS are properly noted as being mints. However many police officers have been fooled by the product. Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector William Blackburn said” Being in narcotics the majority of my career, I thought it was the real stuff.” A veteran police officer actually cried when she saw the product; the police officers daughter died of a heroin overdose over six years ago.
However, Hershey insists there was no bad intent in the design of the product and that it was just a large coincidence. Another shocking coincidence is that the plastic packaging used for the product looks remarkably like the magnetic key cases drug dealers use to hide their drugs underneath cars.
Many are afraid that children will begin to mistake nickel bags of drugs for the candy and ingest them. Others are afraid of the false arrest that could take place in many urban communities. One officer even suggested the scenario of a drug dealer being killed because the candy-look alike is being mixed with the real thing in a drug trade.
What also makes it shocking is that this product comes from Hershey, a company dedicated to providing treats for children. Company founder Milton Hershey spent most of his life helping children. Now for the purpose of increasing their bottom line, they have risked the lives of hundreds if not thousands of children.
The strips and powder could have taken different shapes or colors. The plastic packaging did not have to look like the magnetic key cases often used by drug dealers. The reps at Hershey probably knew that its design would cause controversy and draw attention to the innocent brand, and possibly increase their sales. Hershey’s has never been considered edgy and one can be sure some dimwitted marketing rep thought it would be “hot” to distribute a product that kids would think is “cool.”. They probably also figured that parents and community leaders wouldn’t catch on right away and that the buzz throughout schoolyards and playgrounds would have every urban child saving their money to buy some. One young man actually wrote into the Philadelphia Daily News and stated that he thought it might help his “street cred”. What the Hershey’s Reps probably didn’t bet on was that many of the parents and community leaders in our city would mobilize. Councilman Juan Ramos was the first to take issue with the candy and introduced a resolution in City Council on December 6, which Council unanimously adopted, “Denouncing the Hershey Company for their marketing and distribution of Ice Breaker Pacs and urging the company to immediately remove the product and repackage the product in a more responsible manner.”
Since the outpouring of letters and phone calls from parents, police officers, teachers and shocked consumers, as well as the numerous newspaper articles and television news items, Hershey’s has issued a statement saying that they would repackage the product.
So some questions remain; with the poor earnings this year, did they gain the sales they thought this stunt would provide or did they lose valued customers who could just as easily enjoy a Nestle Crunch bar? And we wonder, did this experiment in stupidity have anything to do with the drastic shakeup at the top of the company?
