Poisoned candy is an urban myth
Published 3:05 pm Friday, October 29, 2010
You’ve heard the advice before: Check your kid’s candy bucket after going trick-or-treating on Halloween. Throw away any treats from a neighbor handing out homemade goodies. Sometimes hospitals even offer to X-ray the candy just to make sure there isn’t a needle in that Snickers bar.
This advice turns out to be the ultimate Halloween prank, a horror that has never happened, not once, in the history of Halloween, according to a researcher who has studied reports of Halloween mischief dating back to the 1950s.
“Deviants typically do bad things because they are greedy or they are angry,” said Joel Best, a professor of sociology and criminal justice at the University of Delaware. “They don’t just poison kids for the sheer fun of it.”
In nearly every suspected case of candy poisoning, Best has determined that it was either a hoax or an attempt to cover up other mischief by blaming anonymous candy poisoners.
His conclusion: Reports of poisoned candy from strangers are a myth.
And even though Best first published his findings more than 20 years ago, the fear persists today, with nary a razor blade in an apple to be found.
“I think an urban legend is harder to kill than a vampire,” Best said.
The fears tend to spike during times of nation stress, Best said. In 1970 and 1971 there was spike of 10 and 14 reports, though all were found to be false. He credits those reports to fears of hippies handing out acid on lickable candy and tattoos.
The best-known case of Halloween candy tampering came in 1974, when Texas dad Ronald Clark O’Bryan killed his son by lacing his Pixy Stix with cyanide in order to claim $20,000 in life insurance. Before that, a Detroit 5-year-old died in 1970 after eating heroin supposedly hidden in his Halloween candy. It turned out the boy had simply gotten into his uncle’s stash.
In September 1982, after seven people died in the Chicago area after taking poisoned Tylenol, fears over poisoning virtually shut down some trick-or-treating.
The most recent Halloween panic came after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, when anthrax fears prompted parents to stay away from any powdered candy
Commercial interests are all too willing to exploit Halloween myths such as these, said Lenore Skenazy, writer of the Free Range Kids blog, which urges parents to let go of irrational fears of strangers and boogeymen. And police and federal agencies continue to reinforce them.
“There is a big echo chamber of fear,” said Skenazy . “And nobody will ever criticize you for saying ‘Please watch your kids,’ even though there hasn’t been a case of a child getting poisoned on Halloween. Ever.”
