Today is the first day of an America without candy cigarettes. Banned by a smoking prevention law prohibiting candy and "fruit-flavored" cigarettes, the badass big brother of the Pez dispenser is officially contraband. Update: Wait! Candy cigarettes can stay!

Update: Candy cigarettes survive! This post was based on a Consumerist item that has since been taken down, because it was untrue. (Cached version here.) Here's Big Money explaining how we all got the candy cigarette story wrong. This post is now as outdated as we once thought candy cigarettes were.

To bid farewell to the easiest-way-to-give-your-mom-a-heart-attack treat of yore, here is Indonesia's famous smoking baby. I'm not sure if he's a cautionary tale, a counterexample, or a nonsequitur. He may not know what candy cigarettes are, but if he does, he probably thinks they are a cruel joke.

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I remember the days when my I'd walk up and down the cul-de-sac "smoking" with my neighbors until the childless divorcée everyone called "the witch" (were we sexist, or did she actually practice black magic?) would open her window and scream at us to stop smoking, or she'd tell our parents. Then we'd shove our cigarettes in our mouths and chew—in retrospect, a terrible precedent for children would grow up thinking swallowing stuff is a smart way to get out of trouble.

Good-bye, candy cigarettes. Like pagers, pay phones, and smoking indoors—you had a good run, but the times have simply passed you by. [Consumerist, image via Ahd Child's Flickr]