I'm a crackhead.
(Insert your own joke here.)
Before the DEA comes a'knockin', let me say I'm not a for-real, sell-your-mama's-big-screen-TV-for-$10 crackhead.
I am, though, writing this column under the influence of a drug that has my heart pounding, the keys on my computer keypad jumping around and me feeling a need to keep pushing my eyeballs back into the sockets.
Even more disturbingly, Whoopi Goldberg is looking unprecedentedly delectable on the TV screen.
"Crackheads" is actually the name of a candy, but after eating half a box – I swear, I flushed the other half so I wouldn't eat it, too – you realize this isn't Now & Laters or Pez.
Even the founder of the Milwaukee company admitted that. John Osmanski said: "The target market is 18- to 35-year-olds, young professionals and college kids who drink a lot of coffee."
Paul Scott thinks Osmanski is high off his own product if he believes that.
Scott, a hip-hop minister, said, "I try to keep up with what's being fed to our children." He has led national protests against products such as Pimp Juice and Phat Boy malt liquors and is now urging parents to write FYE, the music store that carries the candy, and the candy company itself.
"Parents need to tell them 'Crack is wack' and so is their candy," he said. He has the address on his Web site, nowarningshotsfired.com.
Osmanksi insisted that "there's nothing in the marketing" to associate Crackheads the candy with the crackhead who, I'm guessing, is going to break into your house the minute you run to the Piggly Wiggly for some neck bones.
His argument would be more convincing if the slogan weren't: "We're all addicted to something."
To read the complete column, visit The News & Observer.