From: slavins@hearsay.demon.co.uk (Simon Slavin)
   Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
   Subject: Drugs in school playgrounds, yadda yadda
   Date: Mon, 06 Jan 1997 20:27:45 +0000
  

Hole Lot of Hassle

Teachers all over the country are alarmed by a new-look Polo mint.

It is not the mint with the hole that is worrying them but the gimmicky "hole from the mint" produced by Nestle Rowntree.

The classroom menace is a small, white pill-shaped sweet, each marked with a P, L, or O. Teachers are confiscating hundreds of them fearing they might be drugs.

One was convinced that the L on one "hole" was short for LSD. So the new sweet has been added to toxicology identity lists.

Explanation for those of you not subject to the 'Polo' promotional technique: Polos are promoted using the phrase "The Mint with the Hole" over here, the word 'mint' not having the rude meaning it has in some places. Nestle has taken to selling small mints which purport to be the part of the polo with is usually punched-out and discarded.

The smell and feel of these 'holes' is identical to that of the Polo, one of Britain's highest-selling sweets, though I suppose it would be possible to dope them with LSD.

Simon.