I started smoking at 16. It was one of those foolish mistakes you make as a youth when you think you’re invincible. Ha. I can quit whenever I want. Look how cool I am blowing smoke rings. I’m not addicted at all. Nope. Seventeen years later, I was still smoking. I tried to quit. I tried quitting cold turkey. I tried weaning myself down from a pack a day to nothing. I tried the filters that block out an increasing percentage of nicotine and tar. I tried counseling. I tried wellbutrin (which is an alternative to Chantix). I never made it more than two months, and that two months was only once. I usually only made it a day or two. I have hated smoking since I realized that quitting was not the simple task I’d believed it to be those first few weeks or months, but I couldn’t quit. I grew up training to be a singer – classical, opera, choral, theater. I was a first soprano, and I was really very talented. I got the sixth highest score for first sopranos auditioning for the Virginia state choir as a senior in high school. I was a vocal performance major at Christopher Newport University. I love music, and for most of my life, singing was what made me happy. Smoking destroyed my voice. I stopped singing because I didn’t want to think about what my decision to smoke cost me. I stopped singing because smoking had destroyed the four octave vocal range I once had, and left me unable to even sing along with most pop songs because my vocal chords had been ravaged. I spent a decade getting bronchitis that would pretty much invariably turn into pneumonia multiple times a year. When I got a cold, it would take me weeks to recover. Again, all thanks to smoking. I used to run for recreation. That stopped because I was a smoker – my lungs, my body couldn’t handle it. I’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars on dental work because of smoking. I stank. Oh my god, did I reek of stale tobacco smoke. I didn’t even realize it while I was a smoker. For seventeen years, I smelled like the wrong end of a tar pit. I can honestly say that the decision to start smoking was the absolute worst decision I have ever made in my life. I hate smoking. Now, I’m married to a man who smokes. He’s tried to quit, also, and he’s had even less success than I have. Two and a half weeks ago, my husband and I decided to give vaping a try in order to attempt to quit smoking. We went to a vape shop, bought PVs and liquids. We started out with 18mg nicotine liquid and eGo starter kits, and walked out of the shop with the intent to gradually transition from analogs to vaping. Five days later, on April 3rd, I quit smoking tobacco entirely. I found immediately upon vaping that it was much more pleasant, and that cigarettes tasted horrible. I smoked the rest of the carton I had after starting to vape and I was done – amusingly enough, smoking the rest of my cigarettes was a chore and I couldn’t wait to be done with them, but, silly me, I couldn’t justify throwing out three packs that had cost almost $8 each. I haven’t experienced any of the cravings or agony of attempting smoking cessation. I had a few twinges (seriously, like maybe five total) for the first couple of days, during times when I habitually smoked for years – after meals, taking the dog out, in the car, before bed – but as soon as I vaped, the craving to smoke went away. I haven’t been crabby or felt sick. In fact, even with what I consider tobacco detox, coughing up a bunch of phlegm and other grotesque things, I feel better than I have in years. I can breathe deeply. I’m not wheezing. I don’t feel a constant need to cough. My skin is clearing up. I can smell things so much better than I used to be able to. I can taste my food. My hands and feet aren’t constantly cold or falling asleep. I have a lot more energy. My voice even seems to be healing, albeit slowly. Two weeks of not smoking and for the first time in ten years, I can actually use my upper register. It’s cracky and sounds horrible, but it’s *there* and making sound, as opposed to the rasp of air passing through vocal chords that didn’t work anymore. The really amazing thing? My husband hasn’t kicked tobacco to the curb entirely yet, but he has a physical fitness test this week and doesn’t want to be detoxing from tobacco during it. So he’s still smoking with every intention of quitting this weekend. Not once have I even had the desire to ask if I could bum a smoke off of him since I quit. The few times he’s smoked near me, I was so disgusted by the smell that I definitely didn’t to go back to it. A few days ago, I upgraded my PV to a much higher quality one. I have also moved down to 12mg nicotine e-liquid and haven’t had any problems with withdrawal or cravings. My eventual goal is to work my way down to no nicotine at all. And even if I don’t get there, legit studies have shown that nicotine is about as harmful as caffeine, and that it may actually have some beneficial health effects, as well. I no longer need tobacco. I am no longer a slave to the cigarette. I no longer have to sacrifice my health and my happiness, I no longer have to stop doing things I love, and can maybe start doing some of the things I used to love again, to smoke. I am free, and I am glad. And I have no reason to go crawling back. I believe with all of my heart that banning e-cigarettes is wrong. Mine is just one of millions of tobacco cessation success stories out there due to e-cigarettes. Certainly, e-cigarettes, devices and e-liquid, need sensible and safe regulation from the FDA so that all devices and liquids sold legally are held to a safe and quality standard, and there absolutely need to be more studies done on the health effects. But as it stands, there are only two reasons someone would support the ban of e-cigarettes: Either that person is a fool and buys into bogus scientific research, pseudo-science, and deceitful propaganda, or that person has an agenda to protect big tobacco and the revenues earned from taxes on tobacco sales. One is ignorant, and the other is dishonest.