Delco candy company’s product stirs pot

The Kalan LP company isn’t selling anything illegal.

But the Pothead sour candy being sold by the wholesaler in Lansdowne is causing many to send up smoke signals about what the candy represents.

Kalan specializes in novelty items including the Pothead candy, which includes gummy candy, lollipops and ring pots shaped like marijuana leaves. The candy is sold in about 1,000 stores nationwide and has been on the market since January.

“It’s not intended to be promoted for children,” said Andrew Kalan, president and CEO of the company. “I’m a parent and I don’t believe it will lead down the path of drug use.”

The Kalan company has been in business for 40 years and has been in Lansdowne 25 years. The Pothead candy isn’t its biggest cigarettes seller, but is worth producing.

“It sells reasonably good, but is nothing spectacular,” Andrew Kalan said. “It’s a different type of sale than a whole product line.”

The Kalan company doesn’t produce candy, but did come up with the Pothead design for a candy manufacturer. Just whether this will manufacture the idea of marijuana use being OK for teens or preteens is a concern to some.

“For us, anything like that is not good,” said Angela Linden, the clinical director for the Center for Addictive Diseases in Drexel Hill and Exton. “Anything that leads them to even thinking of that is not good. It causes a mindset. The willingness to try things like that is a mindset that is negative.”

It’s important for parents to have the right mindset, too.

“Maybe if it’s a younger child they may not understand what it is so you can’t get upset, just explain why it’s not appropriate,” said Deborah Pedante, who according to her Facebook page has been an early childhood teacher in Delaware County for six years. “I bought a marijuana leaf necklace when I was in middle school and I just thought it was a cool looking leaf lol. So you never know.”