Your argument defending something intended to push drugs to children is pretty sorry, but during the years of candy cigarettes being sold, the percentage of smokers was extremely high.
It’s not pushing drugs to children. It’s a stupid candy, doesn’t look like pot, doesn’t taste like pot, isn’t pot, doesn’t really have anything to do with pot, except a stupid name. Which was probably chosen knowing it would irritate whiny people, thus generating news stories, thus free publicity.
Percentage of smokers was very high for decades before anybody invented candy cigarettes. And it was a generation that grew up on candy cigarettes that started us down the path of not smoking. Smoking led to the candy, not the other way around.