When Chocolate is Outlawed, Only Outlaws, etc...

From our pal James Taranto at the WSJ's Best of the Web, this from deep in the heart of Texas, where a plan to remove candy from vending machines at Austin high schools has gone horribly awry:

The candy removal plan, according to students at Austin High, was thwarted by classmates who created an underground candy market, turning the hallways of the high school into Willy-Wonka-meets-Casablanca.

Soon after candy was removed from vending machines, enterprising students armed with gym bags full of M&M's, Skittles, Snickers and Twix became roving vendors, serving classmates in need of an in-school sugar fix. Regular-size candy bars like the ones sold in vending machines routinely sold in the halls for $1.50.

"There was no sugar in the vending machines, so (student vendors) could make a lot of money," said Hayden Starkey, an Austin High junior who said he was not one of the candy sellers. "I heard kids were making $200 a week just selling candy."

The school board is relenting, which will, I suspect, allow the kids to get back to their "day job" of selling marijuana!