Before Halloween, Let's Dispel Two Big Myths Relating to the Holiday

Every year I see two false things get repeated about Halloween. They are:

1. Check your candy for razors/drugs/something dangerous because people could do bad things to candy!

2. Black cats shouldn't be adopted out because people use them as decor and return them or do awful things to them.

You're theoretically more likely to find candy in your razor blades than the other way around,
if you think about it from a humorus angle.

First off, the whole razors-in-candy nonsense is mainly an urban legend with a bunch of made-up stories, hoaxes, and a real-life case where someone poisoned their own child's Halloween candy to collect life insurance money. As for addictive drugs...who the Hell is giving drugs away for free? I swear, DARE taught me that I wouldn't be able to walk down the street without dealers offering me free doses of the hardest smack available, yet the most I've ever been offered by anyone is a beer or a joint from my friends who drink or smoke cannabis (I always decline as I hate beer and don't like smoking anything). If someone is on drugs, they aren't going to give them away to their kids. Have you ever tried to help an addict kick a habit and had to basically pry the drugs from their hands? Plus, dealers have plenty of customers, they don't need to give a 10-year-old with zero money to his/her name fentanyl. There isn't money in it, just potentially really bad press and legal issues if the, "Drugged candy," is traced back to them.

The only immediate danger this black cat faces is being too cute!

As for black cats, there is pretty much zero objective evidence of people adopting them to torture or kill in some kind of twisted ceremony. Again, there are some spotty and unclear stories and a lot of made-up silliness. This is another example of moral panic and if anything, adds even more negative associations to black cats. As for them being returned? That's murky as tons of animals get adopted and unfortunately find themselves returned back to a shelter for a myriad of reasons. It could be allergies, aggression, the family is moving, and so forth. Will someone go through the effort of spending 100-ish dollars, filling out paperwork, and taking a black cat home merely to use it for a party decoration and return it? It's possible, but quite doubtful. Honestly, certain breeds of dogs are at much higher risk of abuse (being used for fighting, bait dogs, and so forth) than a black cat is of being adopted under the guise of a new home that's actually malicious.

You're as likely to get Razor-filled or drugged candy as you are to stumble upon someone sacrificing a black cat. That said, we all have that one friend with anecdotal evidence about how they've witnessed these things themselves. Or maybe it was their friend...perhaps a guy who knew another guy; whatever the case, it totally happened! These myths persist, however, and nobody benefits from them except perhaps parents who can grab handfuls of candy from their kiddos with the claim, "I've gotta inspect it!" My point is, let's please quit spreading misinformation about dangerous candy or applying any more stigma to black cats than they already face due to superstition or such, resulting in tragically low adoption rates and upsettingly high euthanasia data. All of that said, let's have a great Halloween tomorrow!