Taxpayer Funded “Hipster Parties” Cost $5 Million – Quit Smoking, Get Cash

We all know that smoking is bad for you, but the feds spent $5 million over five years to reiterate that message through “hipster parties.”

The project to “Help A Hipster” quit smoking got the funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) – to organize parties.

The parties for hipsters took place at bars and nightclubs, hoping to entice them to "take a stand against tobacco corporations."

Giving away cash was the backup plan. When the main program failed to get people to quit smoking, the participants received up to a $100 “Quit smoking, get cash” payment.

Here’s how the report described giving away the money: when the "parties fail to achieve that goal, the intervention gets blunt, flashing cash in front of the hipsters 'stache.”

To summarize: the NIH, a leading medical research agency, gave the grant for $5 million. The grant was not used for any research or real medical purpose. It was funneled into a marketing campaign that blamed tobacco companies for people’s smoking habits.

This message was delivered at hipster parties.

The #WasteOfTheDay is presented by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.