Reply #19: Too many people imagining razorblades in apples [View All]

[Alcibiades]

My apologies if you already know this, but the whole poisoned candy, razorblades in apples thing did turn out to be an urban myth. Here's one of tha many debunkers of this sad, sad myth that has really hurt Halloween traditions in many places:

http://thefolklorist.com/horror/candy.htm

Where I live, certain wacko nutjob denominations (I won't engage in a slur against a whole group here, suffice it to say that it rhymes with "smothern crappist") also exploit the "Halloween is unsafe" meme, luring innocent kiddies into their rumpus rooms for their competing holiday, something like "Jesusoween" or some such nonsense. Their real motivation, of course, is that 20 years or so ago they all decided Halloween was of the debil.

The funny thing is, while data going back to 1958 record no fatalities involving strangers passing out tampered goodies at Halloween, there really is danger. Researchers at Michigan have found that the rate of pedestrian traffic deaths for kids under 15 increases 4.5 times on and around Halloween, which means that 3 kids die a year from being hit by cars than would be the case without Halloween.

http://www.umich.edu/~urecord/0506/Oct31_05/24.shtml