POLICE: HERSHEY CANDY LOOKS LIKE DRUGS

HARRISBURG, Pa. -- New mint packets being sold by The Hershey Co.
look nearly identical to the tiny heat-sealed bags used to sell
illegal powdered drugs like crack, heroin and cocaine and glorify the
drug trade, a Philadelphia police official said.

Ice Breakers Pacs, nickel-sized dissolvable pouches with a powdered
sweetener inside, hit store shelves in November. The packets, which
come in blue and orange plastic slide-up cases, are similar enough to
drug packets that a child familiar with the candy could mistakenly
swallow a heat-sealed bag of drugs, Philadelphia Police Chief
Inspector William Blackburn told the Philadelphia Daily News for an
article published Friday.

"It glorifies the drug trade," he said. "There's really no reason
that a product like this should be on the shelf."

A spokesman for the company, based in Hershey, Pa., pointed out that
each pouch - made by two dissolvable mint strips - bears the Ice Breakers logo.

"It is not intended to simulate anything," said spokesman Kirk Saville.

Saville would not directly respond to questions about whether Hershey
has plans to change the product's appearance or whether anyone in law
enforcement or inside the company has previously raised a concern about it.