In the Saga Edition of the Star Wars game, you have the option of buying decoy glow rods. They allow you to store a small item inside of them and they light up (fooling authorities).
The only issue is that they weight ~3 times as much as the regular ones and it should be blatantly obvious when a glow rod is a decoy or not.
Is there a way round this? And why is there this discrepancy?
For the same reason a lead bullet in Pathfinder costs as much as a goat; i.e., there isn't one. A container used for smuggling should be lighter than its normal equivalent, because it's hollow, and will get heavier with the cargo it contains. The weight might be slightly "off" compared to a normal glow-stick, but the empty container shouldn't be heavier than the original. Talk to your GM and see if they will waive the weight change.
I'm assuming that this was a case of people not thinking through the game design and practicalities, and wanting to balance the weight at the cost of realism.
What I'd say to my players is that the extra weight comes from a complex battery and charging pack that can be hidden away but is still heavy, allowing the glow rod to function normally with less space for the innards than normal, but requiring external gear to be reusable/usable in the first place.
