Be cool like the adults!
Because of course big tobacco would do that. They were often sold in packs looking just like real cigarette packs, except with the word "Candy" on it. Some appeared to be fictional brands, and others were sold under the branding of real cigarette companies.
A 1990 study found that sixth graders who ate candy cigarettes were twice as likely to smoke cigarettes as those who did not eat candy cigarettes.
And,
Some products contain powdered sugar hidden in the wrapper, allowing the user to blow into the cigarette and produce a cloud of sugar that imitates smoke, which comes out of the other end.
They are still available in the US and Canada, although with some restrictions.
We still had them in Poland in the 90s.
Edit: You can still buy them online. Now I'm thinking of giving them away for Halloween.
Even in the USA in the 90's, the local ice cream man had them. I never saw them anywhere else, but I definitely used to buy them often. We also had Big League Chew which took me far too long to realize it was gum that was supposed to look like chewing tobacco.
Yeah, I can’t believe I didn’t realize that until I was an adult. Wait a minute… was Bubble Tape the allegory to dip?
I think bubble tape was innocent and simply designed to look like a tape dispenser.
I always got them from the ice cream truck
In France too. Maybe even the beginning of the 00s, but I'm not sure.
Looks like the wiki table doesn't list France. Poland, though, still available today, according to that chart.
You can technically get them still in the US and Canada - well most of, but there are several states & provs who ban them outright. But they can't be sold as branded cigarettes, so they are sold instead as "candy sticks" or similar. I found a photo of what those look like. Same product, cig branding out, superhero branding in. I'm not sure that's much better.