My story began like many others. Due to peer pressure when I was very young I started smoking. I was only 8 years old when I lit my first cigarette, but that can be attributed to the fact I was hanging out with children much older than I was at the time. Throughout the years my smoking built up, peaking at 2 packs a day by the time I was 19. By the age of 21 I had successfully managed to cut down to around 1 pack, but that wasn’t due to wanting to quit at the time. That had more to do with the growing expense of cigarettes. Shortly thereafter I did begin to contemplate quitting and tried switching to pipe tobacco because I figured eventually the inconvenience of having to carry and pack a pipe would drive me to quit. I was right, but quitting did not last longer than 3 months. Back to the drawing board again, I discovered electronic cigarettes for the first time when I was 22. Unfortunately at the time I didn’t know any better and wound up using really poor quality equipment. After about a week of using those cheap cigarette-like devices I was back to smoking. I continued to smoke up until about 3 months ago when I rediscovered vaping. At the age of 26, vaping has changed my life dramatically in these short few months. Now that the equipment is much better, easier to access, and the variety of flavors available is so much better I was comfortable quitting. I basically was able to quit cold turkey. It’s the greatest feeling in the world to be free from cigarettes. My breathing has improved, my overall stamina has increased, and due to those two factors alone I have been able to become more active and start exercising. Also when using electronic cigarettes it is necessary to up your water intake levels, this helped me not only to feel better, but aided in my weight loss. 3 months ago I was 330 lbs, today I am right around 300 lbs and still dropping weight every week. I feel like for once I have my life back and I’m going to be able to know I will be there for my daughter while she is growing up. As a side note I would like to speak on a hot button issue: flavors. Unfortunately it seems as though many people in our government have something against people being able to use candy, dessert, fruit, and other wonderful flavors available to us vapers. They claim it targets children and get’s them interested in these products. I say, if it is of that much concern then parents should be doing a better job in regulating their children’s activities. Personally, being a grown man, I love those kinds of flavors and would be devastated if they were banned. Truthfully, you would force me to be criminal and circumvent your laws to make my own. Why force innocent people to become criminals in the eyes of the law? Please, for the love of all that is good and decent in this world, don’t take this away from us.