Tag: halloween

Teenage Trick-Or-Treaters Are Too Scary For These Cities

Every year, it seems like the controversies surrounding Halloween keep getting stupider.

Last year, fears about “rainbow fentanyl” caused panic over brightly colored pills supposedly designed as candy. This year, parents online expressed horror over the “switch witch” (a clever, if cruel way to throw away your kid’s candy haul), and a New Jersey school district announced its baffling decision to cancel Halloween celebrations over concern for the minority of kids who don’t celebrate the holiday.

But there’s also another Halloween debate that has long gotten out of hand: How old is too old to go trick-or-treating? While this seems like a question for parents, some local governments have handed down their own decrees about just who gets to participate in Halloween candy collecting.

According to a recent NPR story, kids over 14 in Chesapeake, Virginia, caught trick-or-treating can be charged with a misdemeanor. Until 2019, they apparently faced six months in jail.

In nearby Norfolk, Suffolk, Portsmouth, and Virginia Beach, kids over 12 are barred from trick-or-treating. Rayne, Louisiana, and Jacksonville, Illinois, also ban teenage trick-or-treaters. In Belleville, Illinois, they can get slapped with a $1,000 fine.

How often these laws are enforced is unclear. However, it doesn’t seem like local police departments are rigorously verifying the age of trick-or-treaters.

“Officers do not spend Halloween night ‘carding’ trick-or-treaters, nor are they actively seeking ‘over age’ participants,” one Chesapeake spokesperson told Today in 2019.

It’s not entirely clear why these cities have enacted age limits on trick-or-treating; the most common—though often vaguely phrased—reasoning seems to be an attempt to halt teenage crime.

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Why Is Halloween Candy So Expensive? Sugar Protectionism.

There ain’t no such thing as free candy, not even on Halloween—as anyone who has stocked up in advance of Tuesday’s holiday can attest.

Candy prices have jumped over 7 percent since last year and are up over 21 percent since October 2021, according to inflation data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Even in an environment where everything is getting more expensive, candy prices have climbed even faster than the overall rate of inflation for groceries and other home goods.

The main culprit is rising prices within the supply chains for America’s candy makers—and, specifically, rising sugar prices. Much of America’s supply of the sweet stuff comes from Mexico, where a dryer-than-normal summer meant a below-average sugar crop, Barron‘s reports. The New York Times spreads the blame a bit wider: Everything from high fertilizer prices (thanks to the Russian invasion of Ukraine) to hotter, dryer weather all around the world that affected sugar crops in Asia, Central America, and West Africa.

There is, however, one major factor that the Times ignores entirely: America’s sugar policies.

The series of subsidies and tariffs that the federal government uses to artificially inflate sugar prices in the United States cost consumers between $2.5 billion and $3.5 billion every year, according to a timely Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released today. Those protectionist policies aren’t the cause of the recent spike in sugar or candy prices, of course, but prices would absolutely be lower without them.

The so-called “sugar program” administrated by the federal Department of Agriculture “creates higher sugar prices, which cost consumers more than producers benefit, at an annual cost to the economy of around $1 billion per year,” the GAO concludes. No matter what happens to cause global sugar prices to fluctuate, Americans have consistently paid higher prices over the past 20 years:

Those higher prices get baked—quite literally—into the cost of everything from Milky Ways to Sour Patch Kids. And, as the GAO also points out, this is a classic case of concentrated benefits for a special interest that results in huge, but very diffused, costs for everyone else: “Because the program guarantees relatively high prices for domestic sugar, sugar farmers benefit significantly, and sugar farms are substantially more profitable per acre than other U.S. farms.”

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Meth-Laced Halloween Candy Is a Very Unlikely Danger for Kids

It’s beginning to feel a lot like Halloween now that the news media is reporting on its favorite seasonal story: allegedly drug-laced candy.

In Rosarito, Baja California, a toddler ate a Riesen—no relation to this magazine—and began to cry “uncontrollably,” according to KRQE.com. The girl’s mom worried and provided her with some “home remedies” to help her feel better.

When that didn’t work, she brought the 18-month-old to the hospital. The folks there determined the little girl had ingested methamphetamine. The police proceeded to question the mom, who said she didn’t know where the candy—which is being kept as evidence—came from.

This leaves us with some questions, notably: How is the candy being “kept as evidence” if it was eaten?

Also, is there just the slightest possibility that the aforementioned “home remedies” might have included ingredients that are themselves the building blocks of methamphetamine?

And finally, why does the news media feel compelled to report on these one-off events, as if they demonstrate a trend? The dangers of drug-laced Halloween candy are remote to nonexistent. Trust me: No one has ever poisoned a stranger’s kid with Halloween candy.

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No Treats, Only Tricks: Republicans Try to Ruin Halloween With Fake Rainbow Fentanyl Threat

A group of Republican senators has released a video warning parents that Mexican drug cartels have begun targeting children by disguising fentanyl as candy, despite actual experts claiming its bogus.

The public service announcement, a portion of which was aired on Fox News Friday morning, said that “by working together and being on high alert this Halloween, we can help put an end to the drug traffickers that are driving addiction.” 

Halloween this year falls exactly 8 days before the November midterms, and what better way is there to drive home your tough-on-crime, war on drugs-electoral messaging than to convince parents that the cartels are in the house down the block and are handing out synthetic opioids to your kid? 

“Rainbow fentanyl comes in a variety of bright colors, shapes, and sizes, including pills powder and blocks that resemble sidewalk chalk,” said Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy. “Even just handling these pills or powders…can kill a person,” added Senator Steve Daines (R-Mon.), alluding to the myth that touching fentanyl can cause an overdose. 

Nebraska Senator Deb Fisher warned that “according to the DEA, these pills are a deliberate effort by drug traffickers to drive addiction amongst kids and young adults.”

However, experts, who at this point are exasperated at the “poisoned Halloween candy” myth’s yearly resurgence, are again reiterating that drug dealers are not handing out narcotics to children en masse. In fact, the use of colors is typically a way for producers to distinguish their products from other manufacturers and to make them identifiable to existing consumers, not a way to market them to children. Mariah Francis, a Resource Associate with the National Harm Reduction Coalition, criticized the GOP lawmakers misrepresentation of the ways drugs circulate in communities. “Drug markets are based off profit gain and profit margins,” explained Francis. Drug dealers “are not making money giving free fentanyl tablets […] to small children.”

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Gavin Newsom Reappears, Claims He Skipped Climate Conference to go ‘Trick-or-Treating’

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has reappeared in public for the first time since October 27th, claiming he missed the Cop26 climate conference to go ‘trick-or-treating’ with his children.

Newsom spoke at the California Economic Summit, where he complained about the “treadmill” of work he had to plough through.

Fox News reports that Newsom’s children held an “intervention” during a family dinner because they “couldn’t believe I was going to miss Halloween.”

“He ultimately decided to stay home because the “knot” in his stomach was too much to bear,” according to the report.

Breitbart’s Joel Pollak wondered why Newsom had to miss the climate summit given that it is still ongoing and Halloween was 10 days ago.

“In addition to family, Newsom claims he has devoted the past two weeks to work — though he spent Saturday at the lavish wedding of billionaire oil heiress Ivy Getty, with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) officiating the nuptial vows,” he writes.

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On This Halloween, REAL Monsters are Wreaking Havoc on Our Freedoms

We are living in an age of mayhem, madness and monsters.

Monsters with human faces walk among us. Many of them work for the U.S. government.

What we are dealing with today is an authoritarian beast that has outgrown its chains and will not be restrained.

Through its acts of power grabs, brutality, meanness, inhumanity, immorality, greed, corruption, debauchery and tyranny, the government has become almost indistinguishable from the evil it claims to be fighting, whether that evil takes the form of terrorism, torture, disease, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, murder, violence, theft, pornography, scientific experimentations or some other diabolical means of inflicting pain, suffering and servitude on humanity.

We have let the government’s evil-doing and abuses go on for too long.

We have bought into the illusion and refused to grasp the truth.

We’re being fed a series of carefully contrived fictions that bear no resemblance to reality.

We’re living in two worlds: the world we see (or are made to see) and the one we sense (and occasionally catch a glimpse of), the latter of which is a far cry from the propaganda-driven reality manufactured by the government and its corporate sponsors, including the media.

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Team Woke is Ruining Halloween, Rolls Out List of Cancelled Costumes and Activities

Earlier this month, the Benjamin Franklin Day Elementary School in Seattle caved to team woke and cancelled their annual Halloween celebration. When asked for the reason the school ruined the joy of so many children, the school responded by claiming that Halloween is not inclusive to all children.

The elementary school released a statement to KTTH Radio suggesting that the holiday is distracting and “uncomfortable for kids” and it “marginalizes students of color who do not celebrate the holiday.”

“Halloween is a very complex issue for schools. Yes, I agree this event marginalized our students of color. Several of our students historically opted for an alternate activity in the library while the Pumpkin Parade took place. This was an isolating situation and not consistent with our values of being an inclusive and safe place for all our students — especially students of color and those with a sensitivity to all the noise and excitement of the parade,” said School principal Stanley Jaskot.

Instead of Halloween fun, kids at Ben Franklin Elementary will partake in “fall events,” like “thematic units of study about the fall” and reviewing “autumnal artwork,” according to the school’s newsletter put out on October 8.

Ironically enough, the cancelling of Halloween by school officials is being called an act of “white privilege” by the anti-woke crowd, and they are right. Vivek Ramaswamy, author of “Woke Inc.” referred to the school’s decision as an exercise in “white privilege” by blaming the holiday instead of the school’s failed policies of including all students.

Parents of children at the school also agree. David Malkin, whose 7-year-old son attends the school called the decision an “exercise in affluent white vanity that is wokeism.”

“I don’t see any way in which this actually addresses any inequities to the extent that there are any inequities,” Malkin told Jason Rantz, host of the show on KTTH Radio. “You know, this just seems like grandstanding on behalf of the principal and the staff who are predominantly white.”

Malkin, who is Asian, said parents weren’t involved in the decision.

Unfortunately, it seems that this wokeism is spreading and people like principal Stanley Jaskot cannot help but act as the great white saviors of folks they claim are oppressed. All the while they remain entirely oblivious to the fact that they are further perpetuating racism by claiming that their actions and their actions alone, are the only thing that can save minorities from their ostensible constant plight.

The great white savior role only serves to further the victimization of minorities by constantly telling them they are victims and that they need woke white principals to come to their aid or else they’ll continue to be persecuted. It’s an endless loop of negative feedback that has no end in sight and is beginning to grow into a leviathan of mass censorship and divide.

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‘Racial Equity Team’ at Seattle Elementary School Cancels Annual Halloween Parade Because it “Marginalizes Students of Color”

A Seattle elementary school canceled its annual Pumpkin Parade because it “marginalizes students of color who don’t celebrate the holiday.”

The ‘Racial Equity Team’ at Benjamin Elementary school in Seattle canceled the parade and said students cannot dress up in costumes this year.

Instead, the children will participate in “inclusive” events like “thematic units of study about the fall” and reviewing “autumnal artwork,” the New York Post reported.

“There are numerous community and neighborhood events where students and families who wish to can celebrate Halloween,” a Seattle Public Schools spokeswoman said in a statement provided to KTTH Radio talk show host Jason Rantz. “Historically, the Pumpkin Parade marginalizes students of color who do not celebrate the holiday. Specifically, these students have requested to be isolated on campus while the event took place.

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L.A. County walks back Halloween ban, says trick-or-treating ‘not recommended’

Less than a day after issuing new health guidelines that banned trick-or-treating and other Halloween activities, Los Angeles County public health officials walked back the decision Wednesday.

Citing an inability to maintain safe social distancing and the potential for gatherings beyond household members, county officials initially nixed trick-or-treating along with other Halloween traditions, including haunted houses and parades.

But Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said Wednesday that the guidelines have been “slightly revised.”

Ferrer said the change distinguishes between activities originally prohibited under the health officer order from activities that are “not recommended.”

“This year, it’s just not safe to celebrate in the ways we usually do,” Ferrer said. “We are recommending that trick-or-treating not happen this year.”

The Department of Public Health previously said that because some of the traditional ways in which Halloween is celebrated do not allow contact with nonhousehold members to be minimized, it is important to identify safer alternatives.

“Trunk-or-treat” events involving car-to-car candy dispersal, which are sometimes held by churches or schools, also are not recommended under the revised order.

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