My name is Wayne. I’m from a town in Ontario Canada. I’m 48 years old. I started smoking cigarettes at the age of 12. I attempted to quit a number of times over the years. I swore the last attempt would be my last. The frustration of trying to quit several times beat me down to where I just gave up and accepted my fate as a cigarette smoker knowing I would die from it. The years passed. A decade or two passed. A friend of mine wanted me to quit. Apparently she cared about my health more than I did. At the time it came across as annoying. She kept bringing it up, asking me to quit. I told her to back off and just let it go. She told me about electronic cigarettes which I heard of but knew nothing about. Out of her concern for my health…she researched e cigs and asked me to try it. To be perfectly honest I agreed to try them just to shut her up and get her off my back. I knew they wouldn’t work. Just another gimmick so a company could steal my money. But if it would get her off my back about smoking…ok, I’ll vape for a day then go back to my smoking. I seen a starter kit for half price. It was cheap enough so no big loss. Ok, I’ll get that one. Since I ordered a kit I thought I would be half serious about quitting. Well, if I can smoke half the time and vape half the time I guess that’s better than nothing. I’ll put 10 cigarettes out for the day. Whenever those 10 are gone, the rest of the day I’ll vape. Smoke a cig, have a vape. Smoke a cig, have a vape. Yeah ok, sounds like a plan. On January 9th, 2013 at 9:35am I had my last cigarette. Yes I remember it that well. I purposely looked at the time…just in case something came from this contraption which resulted in something positive. I wanted to remember details. I was fascinated by the smoke coming from this stick that I didn’t even light up. Half the day passed…no cigarette. I didn’t think much about it. I was somewhat impressed I didn’t have a craving yet for the real thing but it’s only half a day. It means nothing. A full day goes by…no real cigarette. It’s a fluke. I just happened to have a good day. I’ll want a cigarette tomorrow for sure. No doubt. Next day passes without any of the 10 cigarettes gone. Still no craving for a cigarette. I’m a little puzzled but it’s still just a fluke. A week passes…still none of the 10 cigarettes I left out are smoked. I sat there trying to figure it out. Why? Why haven’t I craved a real cigarette in a week? Why not once?This e cig thing is a gimmick. It’s not suppose to work. I was still trying to convince myself it wasn’t working even though it was working for a week. Two weeks pass…still none of the 10 cigarettes gone. Not once did I look at them with anticipation or want. I still wouldn’t accept it because this whole stupid e cig thing is just BS. At the end of the third week…I gave up trying to explain it away. I gave up trying to fight what I knew was true. It…it…it works. For reasons I couldn’t explain…it somehow works. Not long after I started vaping I was coughing up a lot of junk. Getting rid of the garbage from my lungs. The weeks rolled by. The months rolled by. Along came January 9th, 2014. For 365 days I didn’t have one cigarette. 365 days later those same 10 cigarettes were still in the pack…untouched for a year. I’m writing this on May 5th 2014. For almost one year and 4 months I have not had a cigarette nor have I craved one. Not once. If that doesn’t blow your mind you don’t have a beating heart. How do I feel now that I haven’t had a cigarette in over a year? Thanks for asking. I feel a lot better in every way. When I wake up I don’t feel as groggy. It takes me less time to get rid of the brain fog when I do wake up. I can breathe easier. I can hold my breath longer. I can walk up the stairs easier. I don’t feel as tired. You really want to know how how vaping compares to cigarettes? Shovel 10 inches of snow as a smoker then shovel 10 inches of snow as a vaper. Do I need scientific lab test results to tell me anything? No, but again, thanks for asking. You may not approve of my choosing to smoke in the first place. You can blame me for choosing to continue to smoke for all those years. You can blame me for giving up trying to quit cold turkey or not connecting to other alternative quitting methods. But if you take away the only thing that has given me a potentially longer, healthier life…I blame you for being morally corrupt. You know this is better for me than smoking yet you deny me. What if I was your husband, your wife, your sister, your brother, your aunt, your uncle, your friend? What if I was you child? Look your kid in the eye who is a smoker and tell him or her you don’t care. Politicians are in a very unique situation. They make choices that affect every individual in the country. Issues that personally affect us all. Very very few of us have the power to change the lives of that many people for the better. This is an opportunity to be the hero. To do the right thing. In denying my right to vape you’re knowingly denying my right to a better, healthier life. Products will be abused. Kids will abuse products. I sniffed model glue twice when I was young and stupid. Why wasn’t model glue banned? Kids die in alcohol related accidents every year I assume by the hundreds if not thousands. Why isn’t alcohol banned? Why? There’s not one ingredient in Cherry cola that is healthy for children. Why isn’t it banned and why is it flavoured? A flavoured product directly targeted to children with 10 teaspoons of sugar legally advertised even though it’s a contributor to childhood diabetes. When all is said and done it all comes down to morality and choosing between what you know is right and what you know is wrong. Will you be a puppet of big pharmacy and tobacco companies or will you do the right thing. You say you’re there to fight for the little guy. Your words on a podium mean nothing…your actions when you vote mean everything. I’m a former smoker. Keep it that way. Thanks for taking the time to read this. My story is a simple one, but one that changed my life.