I had been a smoker for almost twenty years. At one point, I was a three pack a day smoker, though for the last five years or so it’s been one pack a day, which is all the further I’ve gotten to with trying to quit through numerous means. My wife successfully quit 4 years ago with Chantix; but it was no cake-walk for her. While she made it a few weeks on Chantix and stopped smoking, she abandoned Chantix before the full case of medication was done. The horrific intense dreams and mood changes were too much, but she has remained smoke free. When I was younger, as a high-risk depressive patient, I really didn’t care about tobacco harm. As one doctor told me, given my history of suicide attempts and patterns of hospitalization, I had a 95% chance of taking my own life by 30. The concept of tobacco hurting me seemed irrelevant. However, I turn 40 this year; which significantly changes my outlook on smoking. I’ve tried gum and lozenges. The intense stomach upset and bowel disruptions were too much. I tried several brands of nicotine patches, but the glues cause intense and painful itching. I’d tried cold turkey, but I always broke down within a day and resumed smoking. My wife, who works from home, first heard about vaping e-cigarretes from online forums of other work at home moms in 2009, a few months after she first succesfully quit. I bought a 510 setup online, and tried vaping as an alternative; and it looked like a good alternative. I was using it in place of cigarrettes, but I was still using both. However, the reports of possible contaminated products, the doomsday outlook of impending bans by the FDA, and I quickly abandoned vaping. Flash forward 4 years, and I was still struggling to quit smoking. I was on another round of NRT, but I was fighting it badly. In a fit of frustration, I found my old 510 setup, and quit cold turkey on June 21st, switching to vaping only. It wasn’t easy, but it was far easier than any other therapy I had tried. I started researching the health issues, and found that for every anecdotal scare report, there were numerous contrary studies and reports that indicated vaping was a significant form of harm reduction. I also found that devices had advanced significantly in 4 years, and I rapidly upgraded to a higher capacity battery/tank device. I’m 39 days smoke free, using only e-cigarettes. It’s my choice, and don’t think my access should be restricted any more than it is for other tobacco products. While the government should protect its citizens from predatory and harmful business practices, at the same time, the government is a government by and for the people. That balance is delicate, and often the boundaries are overstepped from the imposition of someone else’s values on everyone else. There is no place for the government to prevent me, through my own informed free will, to use e-cigarettes instead of smoking the often more profitable and more taxable analog cigarette, just as the government should not force me to eat a certain diet or ban me from consuming a certain size soft-drink. I fear that if access becomes restricted through a misguided but well-meaning regulation, I’d more likely end up returning to smoking cigarettes than just quitting vaping. Tobacco harm reduction is a viable alternative that should be encouraged, and the free market is a powerful motivator to spread this alternative.