Marijuana Cheetos and Kids: Why Isn’t the Actual Snack Food Not A Concern Too?

With the legalization of recreational marijuana in states across the nation, it was inevitable those in the industry would masterfully perfect all the ways to get high. No longer are stoners subjected to a poorly rolled joint or brownies over-saturated in marijuana-infused butter their Uncle Joey made the night before. Perfectly legal means perfectly perfected… and that includes not only a million ways to smoke the product, but a million ways to eat it as well.

In true American fashion, we have created limitless food products that are infused with marijuana… and with true American capitalistic marketing genius, we targeted the food products that stoners would flock in droves to buy: Snack foods that look freakishly similar to popular brands.

Let’s get real. What were the odds that marijuana producers would market a marijuana-infused ribeye steak dinner over a bag of chips or a box of candy containing THC? I know the pot steak exists, somewhere, but that’s not going to fly off shelves like a box of gummy bears loaded with enough THC to make the movie “Dude, Where’s My Car” actually funny.

Pot heads love snacks… but the problem is that so do kids. Did anyone think about the kids?

With new innovations, come new concerns. Then came the public service announcements and the newest scare for adults when it comes to their children: Marijuana edibles in popular snack forms packaged to look nearly identical to well-known brands. The most notable are marijuana-infused Cheetos. Yes… you can get lifted beyond belief as well as turn your fingers a shade of yellow that will last longer than the high. These packages look identical to the real thing, with the only real difference being slight name adjustments and small markings in the lower corners of the package designating it a THC product.

Most of the media coverage and the biggest concern from the parents was the obvious one: What if a kid accidentally thinks this is a regular bag of Cheetos and eats them? The secondary concern was equally as obvious: Kids bringing these things to school knowingly, and eating them, while the dumb, lame-ass, uncool, loser teachers look on smiling, with no clue these kids are getting high in class. Maybe even offering the old fuck a Cheeto as a prank, and then watching Mr. Chips turn into Cheech and Chong.

It’s not just Cheetos either. It’s an entire array of products from Skittles to Sour Patch Kids to gummy bears to dozens and dozens of various snacks that all look, at least on the surface, like the normal name-brand products, with only small symbols and markings that designate it a marijuana edible.

What I find surprising is not how concerned parents are that kids may ingest some powerful substances that could seriously hurt them, alter them negatively, and possibly cause some kind of long-term harm, but how unconcerned they are that their child regularly ingests some powerful substances that could seriously hurt them, alter them negatively, and possibly cause some kind of long-term harm.

Wait… what?

Look, God forbid any child unknowingly gets high, or even knowingly gets high, and that should be a serious concern… but what about the fact that children are allowed to eat this garbage every day in mass amounts, and adults don’t seem concerned in the slightest what it’s doing to their physical and mental health. The regular snack food is as poisonous as the marijuana edible.

According to Brain Balance, an organization that provides children drug-free programs designed to improve focus, behavior, social skills, anxiety, and academic performance, what kids eat dramatically alters who they are. A more balanced diet of healthier foods can help with everything from a general lack of focus to specific known conditions, such as ADHD and Autism. Big surprise. This really isn’t groundbreaking news.

According to a 2005 study of 117 school children in Britain, conducted by Oxford University, processed food and other “junk food” contributes heavily to poor behavior and other learning difficulties in children. According to Dr. Alexandra Richardson, who led the study, they found that these types of food interfere with the brain, leading to problems associated with underachievement and a host of other disorders. According to an article in the Daily Mail, who covered the study, researchers said they were worried that such poor diets could permanently damage brain development.

“We’re seeing outrageous imbalances in brain chemistry caused by the kinds of foods that sadly millions of kids are eating, and no one’s doing anything about it,” added Patrick Holford, who runs the Brain Bio Centre in Britain.

I’ve seen it. If there was any one thing that I saw abused when I was teaching high school was snack food. It was unreal. Full big bags of Takis and Doritos, Flamin’ Hot everything, the large family-size packages of every candy you can imagine, backpacks with full two-liter bottles of soda, enough Capri-Sun pouches to build a life raft that would have saved the doomed passengers of the Titanic, full boxes of Little Debbie snack cakes and every knock-off brand of pastries for those on a budget. That was just the beginning.

So, when adults and parents see this, why don’t they have an issue with it or freak out too?

I do have a theory about why adults might show no concern for kids eating the regular snack foods all day long, despite what we do know about the potential damage it can cause.

Eating food is not only necessary, but it also can be a very intimate act, even though many don’t often think about it this way.

First, eating is required, so society might be more accepting of bad food because it’s still food. It makes sense that eating, which is one of the most basic fundamental requirements to survive, would get some leeway, even when the food ingested is literally poison in its own right.

Second, it’s also a somewhat personal act. We break bread with loved ones and eating is one of the few ways to connect with others both in friendship and more. Eating is sacred in many ways. The mouth itself also is very intimate as well. What we do with our mouth is not only very particular, but often very private. Think about it… we are relatively open to what touches our hands, but our mouth is a completely different story. This is ingrained in us on a deep subconscious level.

These two things combined may explain why we are so accepting of kids eating garbage all day long. It’s a fundamental part of staying alive and it involves a very intimate part of the body, so there might be some level of discomfort if you tread on anyone’s right to eat, even if it is these types of horrible products.

Look, it’s just a theory… Maybe I ate too many edibles, but I stand by it.

Nonetheless, I’m certainly not breaking new ground here. Food and its consumption has been a huge issue for decades and we have plenty of folks who have opened up conversations about our nation’s eating habits. However, that concern generally centers on obesity, not the mental and behavioral aspects of what this type of food may be doing to folks, especially kids that often disregard this type of stuff.

Bottom line is this: If we are so concerned about the rare chance that a marijuana-laced snack might land in the hands of an unsuspecting child, shouldn’t we be equally concerned about the accepted daily abuse of regular snack foods by thousands of those same children?