Grown-Up Products Tempt the Underaged

Gum and Candy Cigarettes

These once-popular, classic cigarette-shaped bubblegum and candy sticks have entered the realm of the politically incorrect. Emulating smoking parents or the oh-so-smooth and alluring Marlborough man, children eating these sweets could be on their way to nicotine-drenched oral fixations.Photo Credit: bigcityal

Fruit-Flavored Tobacco

Fruit flavors, a bit of chocolate or the scent of cloves may make tobacco more palatable, but the Food and Drug Administration has put the kibosh on these potentially-deceiving smokes."Marketing campaigns for products with sweet candy and fruit flavors can mislead young people into thinking that these products are less addictive and less harmful," said Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, a pediatrician and the FDA Principal Deputy Commissioner in a statement. “Studies have shown that 17 year old smokers are three times as likely to use flavored cigarettes as smokers over the age of 25,” the FDA adds.Photo Credit: Hiding in a Bunker

Sweet, Sweet Beer

Sweet, fruit-flavored and carbonated alcoholic beverages like Mike’s Hard lemonades and punches mask the taste of alcohol appealing to still-budding drinkers in high school and their early years of college.These so-called ‘alcopops’ especially appeal to teen girls, according to The Marin Institute, an organization that aims to “protect the public from the impact of the alcohol industry’s negative practices.” These drinks are often brewed from malt but categorized by states as beer, which can mean easier access at convenience stores, lower taxes for manufacturers and relatively low prices for consumers, the institute notes. Photo Credit: Furryscaly

Alcohol with a Caffeine Kick

Like Red Bull and vodka, caffeinated alcoholic beverages like Joose, Four Loko and the former Sparks recipe from Anheuser-Busch (Stock Quote: BUD), could be cheaper than the sleepy bar-hopper’s favorite. What’s more, they could be available in cans at your nearest corner store, making them more easily accessible to underage drinkers than booze at a bar.But the combination of caffeine and alcohol could make a drinker “twice as likely to be hurt or injured, twice as likely to require medical attention, and twice as likely to ride with an intoxicated driver, as were students who did not consume alcohol mixed with energy drinks,” according to research from the Wake Forest University School of Medicine. "Students whose motor skills, visual reaction times, and judgment are impaired by alcohol may not perceive that they are intoxicated as readily when they’re also ingesting a stimulant,” said Dr. Mary Claire O’Brien at the University. “Only the symptoms of drunkenness are reduced – but not the drunkenness. They can’t tell if they’re drunk; they can’t tell if someone else is drunk. So they get hurt, or they hurt someone else,” O’Brien adds.Photo Credit: The Futuristics

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Beer Cans for Sports Fans

Some colleges are worried that sports fans – including under-aged drinkers – might be tempted to get cases of beer cans enrobed in their school colors, according to The Wall Street Journal. Anheuser-Busch, producer of Budweiser and Bud light, introduced 27 types of school team colored “fan cans,” the Journal reported. Photo Credit: Ivy Dawned

A Delicious Dose of Caffeine

In addition to sodas, caffeinate-rich coffee drinks may also appeal to younger and younger crowds with their dollops of whipped cream, drizzles of syrup and fun, shake-like consistency. And either one could lead to physical dependence. If you drink more than two cups of coffee, which could include Starbucks (Stock Quote: SBUX) frappucinos, every day and you quit cold turkey, you could be hit with withdrawal symptoms like headaches, irritability, and anxiety, according to WebMD. Photo Credit: TSK Design

Caffeinated Candy

Coffee flavored candy and chocolate covered espresso beans have become commonplace, but one type of candy might have just upped the caffeine content of candy exponentially. Crackheads2 and Jitterbeans, their counterpart with a tamer name, are made of espresso beans, added caffeine, 60% dark chocolate and a candy coating. And they’re sold in candy vending machines just like those at grocery stores back in the day. Coffee and candy lovers can pay just 50 cents per jolt in a machine, which offers more than one cup of coffee’s worth of caffeine. A whole box of the candies give you the same amount of caffeine in six cups of coffee, 7.5 cans of Red Bull or 11 cans of Mountain Dew, according to manufacturer Osmanium Candy Company.And Crackheads aren’t the only ultra-caffeinated candies on the market. Even Snickers came out with its own, limited-edition Snickers Charged bar.Photo Credit: Osmanium Candy Company