The Free Market At Work

Here's a lesson that should be a case study in every high school economics class (hat tip Best of the Web Today):

"When Austin High School administrators removed candy from campus vending machines last year, the move was hailed as a step toward fighting obesity," reports the Austin American-Statesman. Instead, the enterprising students created a black market in sweets:

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."

In response, the school has restored some candy to the vending machines by declaring it nutritious: "According to the state, milk chocolate, for example, meets minimal nutritional standards because it does have milk in it. Candy with peanuts contains protein. The vending machines still don't carry Starburst, Skittles and other so-called pure sugar products."

I remember the same thing happening when I was in junior high. For some reason there was a gum fad on campus for awhile, and certain entreprenurial students took to satisfying the demand by bring in packs of all different kinds of gum and selling them to other students (you couldn't buy gum at school, nor were you allowed to be caught chewing it).

I predict something similar will happen the Saddleback Valley School District (where my kids go) next year when they remove all carbonated soft drinks from the vending machines. Maybe I can fund my kid's college education by smuggling Coke (the liquid kind) onto campus. Don't you love the free market!