In its innocent past, the candy container held lemon, lime, orange, pineapple and wild cherry flavored sweets. Now the tube is filled with yellow rocks of crack cocaine, and sits on a shelf in the evidence room of the Annapolis Police Department.
It seems the manufacturers of LifeSavers, the all-American candy, are being used to support another national institution, drug dealing.
The plastic, flip-top containers for LifeSavers Holes have become popular storage cases used by street-level drug dealers selling crack cocaine on corners in Annapolis, police say. The tiny morsels are made to look like the insides of the well-known candy rings, but they also resemble crack cocaine.
Drug dealers gamble that crack, when stored in a candy tube, looksenough like candy that authorities won't notice the difference. But Annapolis police say just the sight of the familiar LifeSavers label in drug-ridden neighborhoods is cause for suspicion.
"You're not going to expect everyone who goes out and buys LifeSavers Holes is doing drugs, but if you're in an area where there's a lot of drug dealing already, if you pat them down and feel a LifeSavers tube, you're going to check it," said Cpl. Jim Doran, of the Annapolis vice and narcotics unit.
Police are holding more than a dozen of the clear containers as evidence in pending drug cases.
"Who knows why, it's just one of those fads," said Corporal Doran, who has seen the candy containers on the streets for the last two or three years. "All you have to do is open it up and hand the drugs over."
The containers can hold between $500 and $1,000 worth of crack, but still are small enough to be easily concealed on a dealer's body, police say. Meanwhile, the rocks stay relatively whole instead of crumbling apart in a pocket.
The trick appears to be a signature of dealers mostly confined to the Annapolis area, police say. Investigators have looked into the possibility that there's one local source for the LifeSavers containers used as drug vials, but they say that's not likely. It's just a cheap packaging tool that appears to have caught on.
"We're finding it's spread through several different drug networks," said Sgt. John Mellon, who heads the Annapolis vice and narcotics unit. "The street-level dealers are mostly using it to hold the drugs, they don't get them packaged that way. Whether or not they use the LifeSavers containers depends on whether they've been to the candy store recently."
But the trend seems to be restricted to Annapolis.
"Since I've been here, I haven't seen any," said Sgt. John Selway, a narcotics investigator and 20-year veteran of the Baltimore County Police Department. "Most of the stuff we pick up is in Ziploc baggies."
Even in other areas of Anne Arundel County, few people have caught on to the LifeSavers idea. "We haven't seen anything new and inventive for awhile," said Lt. Gary Lyle, head of narcotics with the county police. "LifeSavers? Nobody's brought that up at all."
Elizabeth Faullin, a spokeswoman for Planters LifeSavers Co., seemed equally surprised. She said she had never heard of the product being used for criminal activity. "It's just a real unfortunate misuse of our packaging tool," she said.
Community workers in Annapolis say the drug dealing technique is troubling because of its appeal to children. They worry that children will pick up the drug vials and pop their contents unwittingly.
"When drug dealers are chased, the first thing they do is discard the drugs," said Kirby McKinney, director of community action agencies for the Annapolis Youth Services Bureau. "A kid could pick it up and think it's candy and eat it. And if you eat rock coke, that's pretty potent."
The mere sight of the drug exchange could be confusing to a young person, he said. The line between drugs and candy would blur.
"You look like you're passing candy, and people really do share candy," Mr. McKinney said. "You know, 'Hey man, can I have a LifeSaver?' But people sometimes don't get close enough to see what's really going on."
Sergeant Mellon said most of the LifeSavers containers are found on street corners and not in school yards. But, he added, drug dealers like to market their goods in ways that are appealing. And for younger buyers, that could mean a candy container.
The consolation, police say, is that the LifeSavers tubes have been around just long enough that the trend almost is passe. Drug dealers are constantly looking for new gimmicks to throw off police, so if one technique gets too popular, they switch, authorities say.
For now, though, the LifeSavers candy vials remain a fixture in the city's drug life.
"Who knows how long it was going on before officers noticed it," Sergeant Mellon said. "It's hard to decipher the criminal mind."