Loser Kids Are Being Enticed Into Vaping By Shop Adverts

Like the sweet enticement of the Marlboro Man before it, the inhaling industry is getting to our kids again, this time in the form of vaping. You know vaping, right? That thing you see fat guys in shirts and glasses doing outside their offices while staring into the middle distance, tasting the flavour of their vanilla and coffee concoctions, wondering when they'll need to replace the atomiser? Yeah, children think that's cool now.

In a study conducted at Stirling University, 4000 children's habits were monitored and research showed that tempting shop window advertisements are coaxing weans into toking on the robot pipe. E-cig ads look a bit like those TV spot for that extreme chewing gum brand '5', which I remember as a youngster were kind of cool I suppose?

The EU has stated that tougher restrictions must be placed on the advertising of e-cigarettes from next month onwards. This is a concerted effort to get the kiddly-winks to steer clear of the nicotine fairy lights so they don't end up like the sort of people who do e-liquid reviews on YouTube.

The most striking thing about this study is that kids think e-cigs are awesome and wicked, whereas we all know, they're a lame stopgap to giving up smoking, or a hobby for people who haven't quite sunk to the Warhammer 40,000 level yet. A real milestone in its uncool-ness is this advert for Blu e-cigs, which features an androgynous woman herding cattle using a helicopter, who then takes a drag on a black smoke-computer. Maybe kids are just lame now?

Still, at least it can still get them in trouble. Apparently Dora the Explorer actress Fatima Ptacek was suspended from school for ripping the digital bong. Perhaps truancy will be done using VR headsets in the future as well.

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