City and state officials said they'll introduce laws to ban a novelty item being sold to schoolchildren - pencils shaped like syringes.
"Our children should be learning how to read and write, not learning how to be drug addicts," City Councilman Rafael Castaneira Colon said Thursday. "You literally could take the lead out of this toy, put in a needle and use it as a real syringe.""Gold Doctor" pencils are being sold for $1 in candy and stationery stores in the city.
Similar pencils showed up in Los Angeles a month ago and prompted an angry reaction from students and school officials there as well.
The syringe-like pencils have a clear plastic cylinder with calibration marks and a red fluid inside, resembling blood. Fresh lead is produced by pressing a plunger.
"This is the work of a twisted, sick company that obviously could not care less about life or children," Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer said.
Colon said the unidentified store owner pulled his stock after police pointed out the dangers of selling the item to children.
He said there was also the danger of lead poisoning in children who stick each other with the syringe pencils.