Trick or Treat?
CONCORD, N.H. — Pens that look like hypodermic needles are being sold as Halloween novelty toys, stirring concerns among parents and drug abuse prevention advocates as the country battles a rising heroin and opioid addiction crisis.
The pens, filled with brightly colored liquid, topped by a plunger and marked with the measuring lines found on syringes, are sold at Target stores and can be found at several online retailers.
“I think it’s an incredibly bad idea,” said Celeste Clark, director of the Raymond Coalition for Youth, an organization in New Hampshire that works to reduce substance abuse. “Given today’s epidemic that our state is in, it just seems like a no-brainer that something like that shouldn’t be on the shelves.”
A spokesman for Minneapolis-based Target said the company had heard complaints but will leave them on the shelves.
“We have not made any changes to our store Halloween assortment related to this product,” Molly Snyder said. “At Target, our intent is never to offend any of our guests, and we appreciate their feedback. We have shared this feedback with the merchants for them to consider as they plan for future merchandise assortment.”
The backlash began when North Hampton teacher Susan Haight saw the pens amid the holiday displays at a Target store and pressed the retail giant to pull them off the shelves.
“Syringes are being found on beaches, playgrounds, parks, and parking lots across New Hampshire,” Haight told The Associated Press in an e-mail. “We do not need young children confusing real syringes with the toys they got from Target.”
The pens aren’t the first toy to draw ire: Candy cigarettes, gum that came in packages that looked like chewing tobacco and candy that came in prescription-like bottles have been criticized for luring kids into bad behavior. Clark’s coalition was successful in 2013 in getting the manufacturer of the prescription candy bottles to pull them off the market.
