2016's Hottest Trend in "Tainted" Halloween Candy: Tweet First, 911 Later

A big red flag that's emerged in reports of "tainted" Halloween candy in recent years: People who post to social media before calling police, or who never actually call the police at all. That way you get all the attention, but none of the getting charged with filing a false report!

Here are 2016's reports so far, and I'll keep updating this post as the investigations continue:

• A Halifax, Nova Scotia man says his son cut his thumb on a razor blade hidden in a candy bar. With his son's thumb still bleeding, the man did not clean the wound or put a Band-Aid on it - he took a picture of the bloody thumb and posted it to Twitter. 
• Right after news of the first razor incident broke in Halifax, and more than 12 hours after trick-or-treating ended, a girl in a neighboring town suddenly found a razor in a piece of her candy.
• A woman in Huntington, TX posted to Facebook that she found a needle in candy, but apparently hasn't called police. Two women in Marysville, WA also took to Facebook to report finding objects in candy. 
• Someone reported finding a razor blade in candy in Manistee, MI. But get this: "Last year, police in the City of Manistee said two children had razor blades hidden in their candy. Police determined that a family member of the victims was behind that incident. The family member had mental-health issues, police said." Very few of the news reports on this year's incident are referencing last year's hoax. 
• A woman in New Jersey reports finding a needle in candy. This incident is not far from last year's Philadelphia suburbs needle-in-candy hoax, though none of this year's local media coverage mentions last year's identical scare turned out to be hoax.
• Woman in Wisconsin Rapids, WI says her child found a nail in a Tootsie Roll. 
• Ottawa police have already declared one report of tainted candy "unfounded."
• One Wyoming town apparently got extremely hype for tainted candy & scary clowns. "Rock Springs Police Public Information Officer Alison Deters said as of 10am, the department has received one call about suspicious candy which had liquid on the inside. Officers believe the candy may have had something spilled on it, or it broke during transport."
• Update! First confirmed needle-in-candy hoax in Christiansburg, VA

Tainted Halloween candy is almost always a hoax, but that doesn't stop media and police from acting like every needle in candy is CERTAIN ATTEMPTED CHILD MURDER.

Get Ready For 2016's Fake Tainted Halloween Candy Scares

Every year, headlines are filled with reports of tainted Halloween candy. Razor blades in apples! How would you hide one without making it completely obvious? They never say. Poisoned candy! But every kid knows exactly who gave what candy - if you wanted to hurt kids, giving out poisoned candy would be no more secretive than chasing kids around your neighborhood waving a rake.

Let's review 2015's Halloween candy danger scares that made national headlines. Not one of them was even confirmed as an actual attempt to hurt children, never mind an incident that actually hurt a child:

• Gloucester, NJ: Man arrested for making own tainted candy & falsely reporting it
• Kennett Square, PA: Kids admit making up report of finding needles in Twix bars
• Hudson, NH: Cause never publicly identified for razor blade allegedly found in trick-or-treating bag; two years before in a neighboring town, a "razor blade in trick-or-treating bag" turned out to have fallen out of a pencil case
• Manistee, MI: Razor blade in candy turned out to have been a hoax by a family member with mental health issues. 
• Hopkinton, MA: New, wrapped discs of toilet bowl cleaner found in trick-or-treating bags, despite kids not being able to say who gave them out. This was apparently supposed to be dangerous because kids are so stupid they'll eat toilet bowl cleaner.

Poisoned Halloween candy is an urban legend, but that doesn't stop local and even national news from reporting every flimsy story as a WARNING FOR PARENTS TONIGHT. The follow-up news confirming the hoax inevitably gets much less coverage.

Don't inspect your kids' Halloween candy - it scares them for no reason.

And to follow the latest scares - which again, are almost always fake - follow Lenore Skenazy's Free Range Kids blog.

Inspecting Your Child's Halloween Candy Scares Them For No Reason

There is no such thing as poisoned candy or razor-bladed apples - it's an urban legend that does not happen in real life.

But that hasn't stopped generations of parents from telling generations of kids (like me!) that Halloween candy must be inspected carefully before eating because while our neighbors may seem nice and generous, in fact TONIGHT ONE OF THEM MAY MAKE AN ATTEMPT ON YOUR LIFE.

The myth of booby-trapped candy seems plausible at first, but quickly falls apart. When I was a kid, I could've told you exactly who gave me what candy at which house. If someone wants to hurt the children in their neighborhood, poisoning candy is no more anonymous than trying to wring their necks right there on the porch. Repeating this myth and inspecting candy scares our children for no reason. After all, you don't inspect every piece of candy (or any other food) from the grocery store, and that would be much easier to taint anonymously - there's just no urban legend surrounding grocery store candy.

The other damaging part of the myth is that we teach our children that packaged candy is "safe," but fruit, nuts or anything else not packaged is not, so our children end up eating nothing but sugar on Halloween. As John Oliver explains, that's actually the real danger at the scale Americans eat it (read more in Mother Jones):

Tonight: ACE's "Hallowgreen" 30th Anniversary Gala

The Green Miles will be heading to the Hilton Arlington in Ballston tonight for Hallowgreen! It's the 30th anniversary gala for Arlingtonians for a Clean Environment.

Here are some of the highlights:

• Program highlighting ACE’s 30 years
• Live music by The Walkaways
• Costume contest with cash prizes for:
  • Best Environmental Costume
  • Best Costume from Reused Materials
  • Best Student Costume
• Eco-Horror displays
• Silent auction
• Stewardship awards
• Cash bar
• Refreshments (highlighting local and organic produce) catered by the Hilton Arlington

I'll be entering the "best environmental costume" contest but expect to be beaten soundly by someone much more creative than me. And if you're thinking about outbidding me for the autographed copy of An Inconvenient Truth, you'd better bring your checkbook.

Tickets will be available at the door:

- Single: $75
- Couple: $140
- Students (under 21): $10
- VIP: Single: $175 / Couple: $300

A major shout out to the sponsors of Hallowgreen: The Nature Conservancy, The Hilton Arlington, Ecoprint, Arbour Realty, The Cadmus Group, and Wild Birds Unlimited.

As much credit as the sponsors deserve, it's kind of surprising to see some big green businesses missing from that list. Where's EnviroCAB (EDIT: Envirocab was not a major sponsor but donated lots of gift certificates)? Where are those Fresh AIRE business champions?

Request for Green Costume Ideas

The Green Miles is going to the Arlingtonians for a Clean Environment Hallowgreen 30th anniversary gala on October 23rd. They're having an environmental costume contest. What should I go as? Only constraints - must cost less than $100 total, must not require buying lots of junk I'd never use again, must take one hour or less of work to put together. Any suggestions?

Green Halloween: A Fine Line Between Eco-Friendly and Ultra Lame-O

I've been looking over the tips for having a green Halloween from various websites and I have to tell you ... they're a little damn dirty hippie-ish, even for The Green Miles. When I was growing up, if you were giving out organic fruit on Halloween, you were getting a trick.

But there are definitely some tips to help you have a greener holiday, most prominently this year: Make sure your decorations and giveaways don't contain lead. OK, so that's not really exclusively a "green" tip, but with Halloween items joining the parade of Chinese-made toys containing lead, it's probably this year's most urgent advice. Some others ...

* Give out organic or fair trade chocolate
* Instead of using paper or plastic disposable bags to collect treats, use or buy a recyclable bag
* If you're hosting a party, use re-usable plates, cups, utensils, napkins and tablecloths and make sure your guests know where your recycling bin is
* When the holiday is over, save your decorations for future years like you would Christmas lights or ornaments

To cut down on your food miles, you can also get your pumpkin at a farmers market or even at a local farm. I'm a big fan of Marker Miller Orchards in Winchester, VA.

And of course, you can cut down on waste by re-using costumes. After getting invited at the last minute to a Halloween party during a visit to New York City, I bought this giant orange pumpkin hat for $35. I thought it was a ripoff at the time, but I was desperate.

That was five years ago, and it's served me well many times since. Mostly it gets basic "look at that there big ol' hat" type laugh, but last year I managed to kick it up a notch, combining it with a shirt with "3.1428" written on it. Pumpkin pi ... get it?

To get more tips, check out StopGlobalWarming.org or the Sierra Club's blog.