Illegal Candy

Got a chance to go to Cancun in February. Had passed through a few years back but never stayed in the Hotel Zone. All of the hotels are grouped on a long and narrow island that runs generally north to south. A road bisects the island and one the western side of the road there are shops, marinas, golf course and even the very poorly advertised ruins of a Mayan City called El Rey.
The famed beaches of Cancun are pretty much gone. Hurricanes took them a couple of years ago. The government is going to spend big bucks to bring them back by sinking some ships to create a reef and then bringing in lots of sand.
I liked the weather, but one resort after another for miles is really kind of sterile. Unless you hopped a bus and headed into town you couldn’t get much of a sense of what the area and town are really like. Even in town the quaint shops are overwhelmed by the Starbucks and every other chain that surround us in the good old US of A.
I did, however, find something that is really very interesting. Kinder Surprise Eggs. These are hollow chocolate eggs (about the size of a jumbo egg) that contain a plastic capsule in which you will find a toy. I bought a couple for my daughter and her friend who traveled with us. The toys (see Ebay-Kinder eggs) were very nice and I thought I might buy a few eggs to bring back with me. I forgot. When I got to the airport there was a huge Kinder Candy display, but no eggs.
When I got home I checked out the interweb to learn more. These things are sold by the gazillions all over the world. But not in the US of A. It seems that we feel that those are killer toys inside those eggs. Despite the warning on the egg that the toys might not be suitable for kids under three, an obscure law passed in 1938 is what is depriving me of Kinder Surprise Eggs. That law prohibits embedding "non-nutritive items" in confections. So there you have it. Our government has saved us from a fate worse than ………what?
I have a daughter studying in Peru. I told her about the eggs. She and her roommates are hooked. They have the little toys displayed in their rooms. They love the chocolate, but I sure hope she doesn’t try to bring some back with her. The customer service lady at the Kinder office in Canada told me they seize them at the border.