On Campus

Candy contraband

B.C. students cashing in on new junk food ban at schools

A trio of enterprising high-school students in B.C. is making a healthy profit off the province’s new ban on junk food in schools.The self-starting Grade 11 students were selling candy and chocolate bars from their lockers in defiance of the ban that kicked in this school year. They’ve now been booted from school property and forced to move their operation across the street, but they say business is still booming.

Junk food and sugar-laden drinks are barred from vending machines and stores in all B.C. schools.

Kathy Corrigan, chair of the Burnaby School Board, says the students won’t face any serious punishment but she says the case raises some important questions about the junk food ban.

She says the contraband candy trade should prompt the province to rethink its outright ban on junk food, and find ways to use education to address the demand for unhealthy food in the first place.

-with a report from CP 

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