Concerned parents and anti-drug activists have raised the alarm on a store that is selling a “suggestive” candy cigarette kit imported from Holland, which they believed promotes drug use among children.

Centre for Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention (CADA) executive director Cathy Belvedere said retailers and parents needed to be more responsible about the subtle messages that they are sending to children.

The warning came after toy store Jack ‘N' Jills Toy Shop on Park Road were criticised by the parent of an 11-year-old for selling the cigarette candy, with contents that the parent believes could suggest it was teaching children to smoke crack cocaine.

The mother, who asked not to be named said she watched in amazement last Saturday, when her son opened the contents of the kit - which included a box of candy cigarettes, a toy plastic lighter, a plastic pipe and a bag of candy tabacco.

But what raised her eyebrows she said was when he opened the bag containing the candy tobacco, which was not shredded, but hard and rock-like.

She said the candy could have looked on as imitating crack cocaine.

“I've never seen tobacco that looks like rocks,” she said. “I asked him ‘where did he get it?' and he told me Jack ‘N' Jills. He put the rock candy in the pipe and pretended as if he was lighting it. That's not the kind of things we used to have when we were kids. Everything now is so different. But the store should not even have something like that on their shelves.”

The mother alerted The Royal Gazette about her concerns and said that it posed a moral issue for young children.

However, when the manager of the store was contacted, she said she had no idea that the kit contained the rock-like candy and she defended the item being sold in her store.

“This is the first time I am seeing this,” she said. “I brought the stuff from Holland, I don't think it's suggestive. I guess I must be living on the wrong planet. But who are we to say what crack cocaine looks like. I don't know what it looks like. I don't think that there is a problem.”

But before ending the conversation she said that if parents were disturbed, she would take the items of the shelf to prevent controversy.

She said: “It's candy tobacco, but you run with the story. Give Jack ‘N' Jills negative publicity. I will close the candy department down and the children can go and buy their crack cocaine candy from somewhere else.”

Yet Ms Belvedere said that there was a bigger issue and said that members of the community were not aware of the many things that children witness that can influence their perspective.

And she said from what children witness on television and what they see in the home can all contribute to their value system of right and wrong.

She explained that retailers who sold T-shirts and jewellery with marijuana leave shapes are an everyday example and she said that parents and retailers needed to be more critical, especially when it comes to children.

“Everyone knows that it's illegal to smoke marijuana, but the retailers sell these things to kids and it sends a bad message,” she said. “These are the kinds of subtleties, and folks are making money off of it. If indeed this candy looks like crack cocaine and not pipe tobacco and if it comes from Holland where drugs are legal, then that's crossing the line. “We shouldn't have any paraphernalia aimed at kids that supports the drug and alcohol industry.”