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Where Did the Fear of Poisoned Halloween Candy Come From? (2013)

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Re: Where Did the Fear of Poisoned Halloween Candy Come From? (2013)

#41

Post by georgeecollins »

ebcode wrote: post #38

I remember being a kid (8 or 9) and sitting down with my friend at his house with his parents and going through all our candy together to check for danger signs. Sure enough, there was a single-wrapped Reese's peanut-butter cup with a hole in the wrapper, and we opened it up and found a sewing needle stuck inside the peanut-butter cup. (I don't think I'm making this up, but memories being what they are, this might ha…

Your story is amazing, but it is an anecdote. The data found by researchers about the dangers of Halloween candy suggest that the risk is more or less non-existent. The point is not that people should think no one is out to get them, it is that they ignore real dangers because the media likes to talk about imaginary ones, and ignore real ones like pollution, which are not as exciting.

Re: Where Did the Fear of Poisoned Halloween Candy Come From? (2013)

#42

Post by baddox »

flukus wrote: post #39
filoleg wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how it is different from having noisy drunk people as your permanent neighbors. Ultimately, your non-airbnb permanent neighbors are just as much of a stranger to you, with certain specific exceptions.

Your permanent neighbors tend to be noisy and drunk occasionally, people renting an airbnb are on holidays and likely to be noisy and drunk, then a week later you'll get a new batch likely to be noisy and drunk.

But does anyone oppose reasonable rules for time-of-day-based noise levels in an apartment or neighborhood? It really doesn’t matter if your permanent neighbors or transient guests are the ones making the noise, either should cause the property owner/renter to get fined/evicted.

Re: Where Did the Fear of Poisoned Halloween Candy Come From? (2013)

#43

Post by baddox »

jaredhansen wrote: post #23
afarrell wrote: post #7

If anyone knows of a good general technique to persuade a person that their fear of something is overblown, I'd be interested in seeing a link. In my experience, trying to do this results in anger.

I find that generally it helps, counterintuitively, to start with what the DBT[1] literature calls "validation" - reassuring the person that their fear makes perfect sense in light of their priors. You can call this "affirming the emotional truth of what they're saying" if you want, and -- here's a part that took me years to learn -- you can do it without being dishonest. For example, dialog between Them (T) / You (Y…

I’m not saying that line of argument won’t work, but it’s certainly not one I would take with a friend or acquaintance since you’re effectively lying. I guess you could call it “tact” or “rhetoric,” but I find your suggested opening lines very slimy and dishonest.

Re: Where Did the Fear of Poisoned Halloween Candy Come From? (2013)

#44

Post by branchless »

joshfraser wrote: post #20

Despite the constant fear mongering of "stranger danger", turns out most people don't actually want to kill you. One of the things I like about the sharing economy (Uber, Airbnb, etc) is that we're slowly being reminded that it's okay to trust our neighbors, despite the constant attempts by the media to spread fear.

airbnb/uber are not "sharing", they are people renting/driving on a permanent basis, in the main.

Re: Where Did the Fear of Poisoned Halloween Candy Come From? (2013)

#46

Post by asynchronous13 »

ebcode wrote: post #38

I remember being a kid (8 or 9) and sitting down with my friend at his house with his parents and going through all our candy together to check for danger signs. Sure enough, there was a single-wrapped Reese's peanut-butter cup with a hole in the wrapper, and we opened it up and found a sewing needle stuck inside the peanut-butter cup. (I don't think I'm making this up, but memories being what they are, this might ha…

The fear of needles and razor blades goes back at least to the 1960's. The actual number of documented cases is very small, and the vast majority of those don't even involve injury. Follow up studies discovered that most of the reports turned out to be hoaxes perpetrated by the kids or parents (an older sibling playing a prank on a younger sibling, then getting scared when the parents found out and letting the parents report it as legit).

"The Razer Blade in the Apple" by Joel Best and Gerald T. Horiuchi concluded in 1985 that the threat of a halloween sadist had been greatly exaggerated from 1958 to 1983. https://www.jstor.org/stable/800777?seq=1#page_scan_tab_cont...

We can't say it never happens. However, it happens so rarely that it's not worth worrying about.

Re: Where Did the Fear of Poisoned Halloween Candy Come From? (2013)

#47

Post by rhizome »

hexane360 wrote: post #37
analog31 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only variety that I can remember as a kid, was the house on the next street where they gave out Chick Tracts instead of candy.

It seems a little counterintuitive to hand out anti-halloween material to trick-or-treaters. I mean, it's still observing Halloween even if it's not candy you're giving out.

Proselytizers gonna proselytize.

Re: Where Did the Fear of Poisoned Halloween Candy Come From? (2013)

#48

Post by wavefunction »

agoodthrowaway wrote: post #13
jdavis703 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This actually just sounds like a really elaborate "tax" on your children's stash. If you fear the candy is actually dangerous, then perhaps you'd be better off just buying some from the store and distributing it to your kids, that ways they don't run the risk of loosing their parent.

Clearly his post was humorous and intended to poke fun at people's paranoia of poisoned candy.

Actually I think OP is implying he just eats all of his kids' Halloween candy and serves them salad instead.

Re: Where Did the Fear of Poisoned Halloween Candy Come From? (2013)

#49

Post by [deleted] »

Theodores wrote: post #5

Seems that Wikipedia is a better starting point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoned_candy_myths I would date my understanding of the myth to be from 1980, informed by a friend's mum, so the myth was oral tradition by then, across the pond in the UK. So a handful of years after 1974 the meme had spread. This had morphed into an 'only in America' story for those of us outside the U.S. - we believed this happened on…

[deleted]

Re: Where Did the Fear of Poisoned Halloween Candy Come From? (2013)

#50

Post by wavefunction »

13of40 wrote: post #21
jdavis703 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is spending their money to give your kids free drugs on Halloween. I saw a similar story from the local news channel about marijuana edibles being passed out. As the original article says, poisoned candy is not really a thing. I'd be more concerned about your kids being hit by a drunk (or distracted) driver on Halloween than eating something poisoned.

Someone gave my brother a marijuana cookie one time when he was about nine, but it wasn't on Halloween. Seems like giving out edibles from your own house would be an easy way to get a mob of pitchfork-weilding parents on your lawn.

The professionally produced kind are all labeled on the actual food surface with some sort of impression or imprint that's unmistakable unless you're completely innocent of any knowledge of the world.
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