I am a 40 year old female who has smoked for 27 years. I have a condition called Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT), I have been told repeatedly by my physicians that I must quit smoking. I have tried hard very hard. Especially during my 3 pregnancies, including a high risk pregnancy caring twins. As ashamed as I am I must admit that I was completely unable to stop even for the health of my babies. I had utterly given up and thought I would never quit smoking cigarettes. I decided to try vaping 6 months ago to save money, as I was spending between $217-$250 a month. Within two weeks of purchasing a $30 vaping starter kit I had absolutely no desire for a cigarette. None. I have tried patches, gum, Chantix, using Maryland’s 1-800-Quit-Now as a support network and even spent hundreds being hypnotized and was unable to quit for even 24 hours. Yet, with vaping, I have not smoked a cigarette, not one, in five and a half months. I have saved close to a thousand dollars, including the cost of my vape juice and a vape upgrade. I can taste my food better, I can smell things I haven’t been able to smell in many years, and Most importantly my children are no longer around smoking at all. I am horrified that the government’s knee jerk reaction is to ban vaping in public places. This is an outrage! It bothers no one at all! If the issue is that the public doesn’t understand that it is not emitting smoke only vapor then let us take the time to educate the public. I vote and I vape and I will be voting based on any upcoming elections based on a candidates position on vaping. No one wants children or teenagers to start using tobacco or nicotine, I think everyone is in agreement on that. So parents need to educate their children and retailers need to keep these products from them. I am an adult and I have every right to buy flavored nicotine juice without it being a crime. I am unwilling to give up something that I enjoy and has allowed me to completely STOP a disgusting, deadly habit because some teens may start vaping eventually. This is a hypothetical, what is a reality is that thousands of us have quit smoking or successfully cut down solely through the use of a vape. The government should be supporting us and harm reduction through vaping instead of punishing and banning it’s use. I know that the tobacco industry is going to lose thousands, just off of me and my husband (who has quit by vaping after smoking for 32 years) and that they must be frantic. How much of the government’s reactions are from pressure from the tobacco lobbyists? It makes me wonder, that’s for sure. Those of us who vape have the numbers, the money (and where we do and don’t spend it) and the voting power to stand up and demand our right to vape, and thus save guard our health and the health of our lived ones! I would like to be included in anything your group does that safeguards this right. I have never written a letter like this and I have never been so passionate about a product such as I am about vaping. It has truly changed my life in nothing but positive ways! How come my own government is willing to take that away from me? Thanks for reading this, Heather Gray (Baltimore County, MD)