Chocolate addiction goes too far
Marketing strategy unsettling
I honestly never believed I would end up a pill-popper in my early 20s. I definitely never foresaw being prescribed M&M’s by someone who didn’t even know my name.
I never knew I had any medical problems that required chocolate therapy. I had never even heard of chocolate therapy. I admit that I could use a sugar high every now and then. Who couldn’t? I enjoy chocolate just as much as anyone else. But I never expected to be offered it in such a bizarre fashion as I was Friday night.
Some friends and I were browsing the DVD section in Wal-Mart when we noticed an employee wandering the aisles carrying a large tray of pill canisters.
Blue Wal-Mart uniform aside, she looked like she had a second job at a hospital and accidentally showed up to the wrong workplace that night. She approached my group and asked in a very polite voice normally used only by people trying to sell something, “Would you like some M&M’s?”
I was slightly confused and somewhat apprehensive. I saw no such M&M’s. I was also told multiple times as a child never to accept candy from strangers.
Seeing as I did not even know this woman’s name, I decided she belonged in the stranger category. But she looked innocent enough. Also, if I’m legally old enough to smoke, drink and vote, I should be able to take candy from a stranger without ending up with any felonies or misdemeanors on my record.
Then I noticed where the M&M’s were. They were in the pill containers. Finally, I thought, my drug of choice has been made legal! I must support this movement! I should celebrate!
I told the nice lady I would love some M&M’s. She handed me a pill container full of M&M’s and told me Wal-Mart would soon be opening a new pharmacy and this was their way of advertising.
This is an incredibly ingenious way of getting the word out. It’s also a little creepy. The idea of a store passing out chocolate as prescription drugs is slightly unsettling.
Give enough middle school, high school or college kids fake drugs, at some point you’re bound to find one of them running around the store screaming, “Look at me! I’m taking pills! I’m getting high!”
It’s just a fact of life. Once a governing body makes an activity taboo, people will either want to do it or at least come up with a way to fake doing it. My mother can attest to this after she caught me smoking (bubble gum cigarettes) and began screaming that I would burn down the house.
Getting people — particularly younger ones — with that sort of sense of humor to act silly and draw attention to themselves is probably what the new pharmacy wants.
The caps to these containers, while not as easy to open as a bottle of soda, say “Caution: NOT child resistant” on the inside.
That must mean they want children, or people who wish to act like them, to get into the M&M’s. Otherwise, they would have had a genuine childproof cap. Someone once told me only a child would have the patience to try to get those bottles open. Maybe in a few years I’ll agree with them.
Another reassuring factor about the promotion is that if I decide one bottle of M&M’s does not cure my chocolate deficiency, according to the label, I can get it refilled until March 3, 2007.
I have yet to try this, but why not? I’ll just walk up to the nearest cashier, show them my bottle and ask where I can have it refilled.
I mean, it’s free chocolate. Who’s going to say no to that? I might just go every day until they get sick of me and then try it once more for good measure.
It is a little disturbing that a company is advertising by getting impressionable young people to run around acting like they are getting high on prescription medication. Drug abuse, after all, is an activity that should not be condoned in any fashion. But it gets attention, and therefore serves its purpose. And it’s fun to have a chance to pretend to do something that is normally frowned upon.
I just hope my future shopping excursions don’t involve having to call 911 to report a chocolate overdose in Aisle 7.
Columnists' opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of The Spectrum