Australian Parents Outraged Over Lollies Packaged as Pills

An Australian candy manufacturer has been denounced by many for selling lollies in pharmaceutical-style pill packaging.

Sold by Watsons Bay-based promotions firm Sense2, the lollies are marketed as a mini-calendar with custom print on the foil backing - but they strongly resemble a packet of pills.

Paul Dillon, of Drug and Alcohol Research and Training Australia, said the product provided a link between lollies and medication.

'We live, unfortunately, in a very pharmaceutical world and we teach people to take drugs from a very early age,' Dillon said.

'Anything that reinforces that whole notion of lollies being a form of medication is not a good thing.'

Selling colourful sweets in blister packs is 'playing with fire', contends Claudia Keech, chief executive of the online magazine motherInc.com.au

'There are a lot of clever ideas in marketing sweets for clients these days, but something that resembles medication is not a smart idea at all,' Ms Keech said.

'All dangerous products need to be put out of reach of children. It's confusing to the logic of a child if it happens to be left around - don't even go there.'

Such warnings come less than three months after three New South Wales children were admitted to hospital after swallowing pills they had mistaken for lollies.

An 11-year-old girl and two 10-year-old boys were taken to Shellharbour Hospital, on the NSW South Coast, suffering dizziness and blurred vision after taking heart-shaped pills during their lunch break at Windang Public School last October.

The girl apparently brought the pills - believed to be ecstasy - to school to share after mistaking them for lollies.

Source-Medindia
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