An Easton Area School District principal is warning parents that students are crushing Smarties candy and attempting to snort or smoke the candy.
Four Easton Area Middle School 5/6 students were suspended for selling the colorful treats in class last week, Principal Charlene Symia said in a letter obtained by The Express-Times. The candy was selling for 35 to 50 cents a pack, she wrote.
"During the course of my conversations with these students, I discovered that a great number of our students are crushing the Smarties to 'snort' or 'smoke' them," Symia wrote.
The candy can irritate children’s nasal passages and can exacerbate asthma symptoms, according to Tony Luizza, an emergency room doctor for St. Luke’s University Hospital in Fountain Hill. Tissues irritated by snorting Smarties or any foreign substance are more susceptible to infection, he said.
"In rare cases, maggots can actually feed off of the sugary dust in your nostrils," Symia wrote in a letter sent home to parents. Symia declined to comment for the story, saying her letter speaks for itself.
Symia warned students in a note that the Smarties trend could spark interest in real cigarettes or illegal drugs. She wrote that any student using or selling the candy "will be subject to severe disciplinary action and face suspensions from school."
Smoking Smarties candies appears to be a fad for some middle school students across the country.
A seventh-grader in Georgia claimed he smoked the candy to look cool. Others said they did it to "fit in" or succumbed to peer pressure.
Eric Ostrow, vice president of sales and marketing for Smarties, said the potentially dangerous trend started about three years ago after a few kids posted a video online trying to smoke the candy. The candy contains dextrose, citric acid, calcium stearate, natural and artificial flavors and several colors, which could damage the lungs or nostrils, he said.
"They're made to be eaten, not smoked," he said.
An individual cannot get high from inhaling or snorting Smarties, Luizza said.
"It probably gets more absorbed when you eat it,” he said.
It’s important for parents to talk to their children about this trend and observe their behavior, Luizza said, because children who show cold symptoms might not have a cold. The symptoms could be the result of Smarties snorting.
Peer pressure isn’t new to the current generation of students. When Luizza was a student, kids were snorting Pixie Sticks, he said.
“I think this is honestly a cyclical issue,” Luizza said.