My name is Ashley. I am a 19 goin on 20 y/o in Virginia. And i have been smokin since i was 12 or 13. I started out stealing cogarette butts from my moms ashtray that still had tobacco and such in them, even if it was only a hit. Ive taken half smoked cigarettes out of ashtrays outside of 7/11. An thinking back on it…its really sad and gross and i wish i never had. I lost friends because of smoking. I was constantly in trouble over cigarettes and under aged smoking. Ive tried quiting. Iv tried patches, Chewing tobacco, gum, all sorts of methods. Nothing seems to work fo me until October 22, 2014. I met a man, my boyfriend, who introduced me to vaping, an alternative to smoking. I kept track of my health and progress since i started. In november after my 19th birthday, just a month after having started vaping, i felt healthier. I started to lose weight, and having tried to lose weight for years because of being over weight, it was a big accomplishment to me. I started being more active. Walking up and down the stairs no longer made me lose my breath, and my teeth were becoming whiter. It has now been almost 8 months, and i dont think i can recall ever being as healthy as i am today. But i find out now that theyre trying to tax the juice i use to vape…so that its so expensive people wont want to buy it anymore… $11 tax on a 10 dollar bottle? Taking away my right to vape doesnt only do that, but it takes away my right to happy, and healthy. If it wasnt for vaping, i would still be smoking cigarettes and probably end up having cancer like a lot of the people in my family have had to go through. I dont want to have to go through what they did, an i dont want to have to have other people do that either. Vaping has saved my life as well as many others. There are over a hundred added chemicals to cigarettes, some that are deadly. There are chemicals added to make cigarettes more addicting. Most people cant even name 10 of those chemicals… In the juice that i vape there are only 4 main ingrediants.. Sometimes 5. Proplyne glycol. Vegatable glycerin. Flavoring. Nicotine. And sometimes sweeteners. Since i started vaping, since that very same day, i havnt smoked a single cigarette. I was able to stop completely. I started vaping at 18mg of nicotine.. Or 1.8%… I am now on 3mg nicotine, or .3%. Thats less nicotine than there is in a pack of cigarettes… And thats only in a 8 month time period and over the next 4 months i could be on no nicotine at all. But its possible that these bills will be passed before then. So please read my story and share it. Tell them its not okay to take away my rights to vape and be healthy. Love. Live. Vape.