Ever wonder how vape shops draw in the children they count on to sell their candy-flavored poisons? They do it by promoting their stores with phone apps geared to children, of course! What could be better? Or at least that’s what a bunch of lazy scientists at the University of Southern California say. Vaping has provided a platform for all manner of clowns dressing up half-baked political rants in the language of research. Anti-vaping “science” may have hit peak stupid with this one though.

Supported by public funding from the National Cancer Institute, these clowns spent about a day and a half googling Pokemon Go and searching Yelp, then another day visiting Los Angeles vape shops that happened to be located near “PokeStops.” They found one shop that used the Pokemon Go connection to try to lure in customers.“Further research is warranted,” they write, “to determine whether non-tobacco users visit vape shops and/or initiate e-cigarette use after being exposed to these advertisements via game playing, and whether current e-cigarette users increase use as a result of game play.”

Sure, further research, that’s the ticket. Maybe another posse of researchers can scare up another store with a Pokemon Go sign out front. (By the way, be sure to check out Neil Robinson’s hilarious guest spot on Dick Puddlecote’s blog for more on the wacky tobacco controllers and their exciting Pokemon adventures.)

Maybe it’s time for vape shops to hit back. I’d like to see stores and manufacturers that are accused of “marketing to kids” band together and hire an attorney to sue authors of this kind of junk for defamation. How long do they get to make unfounded accusations without accounting for their reckless behavior?

No one is marketing to children, no one is selling to children, and the products aren’t made for children. We all know that. Further, any adult who spends a day studying the issue should damn well know it too. If they insist on using their academic positions to knowingly smear legitimate businesses, maybe it’s time to make them pay for the privilege.

tags:kids vaping, ecigs