Hi, My name is Michael and i’m from Vienna, Austria. I startet smoking very early with appx 14 years, as cigarettes where widely available through vending machines and tabacco stores didnt care to sell to minors if you just said i’ll need a pack for my mom. After 25 years of smoking i ended up with 2 to 3 packs a day. I tried NRTs like gums and inhalers but i never managed to stayed away for more than a month. One morning in april 2012 after waking up, seeing my fully packed ashtray and disposing the eamty packs. I decided to reduce my smoking habit. I knew that stopping is not working for me, but i wanted to at least reduce it. So i startet to google around and found the ecigarettes. I was very interested and read a lot about various types and how they work. I decided to give it a try with an ego-t which was widly recommended by the community. But it was harder that i thought, i found out that Austria classified them as medicinal product back in the years when they first came up. Like the mentality in Austria – we dont know it, lets get rid of it 🙂 Cause of this we have very few offline shops (contrary to Germany where they flourish). Retailer here arent allowed to sell Liquids with nicotine, but vaping, importing and the possess of nicotine liquid for users is not prohibited and legal. So after some hours of searching the internet I found one of the 2 shops in Vienna and 10 minutes later i was in my car. It was a very small shop, but the Vendor (from germany) was very nice and helpful. i tried some of the 10 liquid types (without nicotine), the small mini-ecigs (cigarette-like) and the ego-t. As a heavy smoker i was not very convinced and thought that this would never work because of the absence of nicotine, but nevertheless i got a starterkit because i knew that i can order some nicotine liquid from germany on the internet. But to my surprise it did work, also without the nicotine i cut my smoking habit from appx 50 cigs to 10 a day. I also found a offline shop who sold nicotine liquid under the table and from that time i knew that it was a very good working alternative to smoking. I immediatly started to search everything about ecigarette, studies, mixing liquids, self wicking, bought some ebooks about how to mix my own liquids. So in the second week i was ordering bottles, syringes, flavorings, nicotine bases and of course the bulli a2. I never really stopped smoking for various reasons but i didnt have the same urge as before. After over a year of vaping i still smoke 0-10 cigs (selfrolled) a day, but i have no problem going without tabaco for some days. I even dont care if i forgot my evigs when going shopping, which was unthinkable a year before. I never went out of my home with less than 2 packs of cigs. I feel so much better after starting to vape, i can walk stairs like in my youth without grasping for air, my smokingcough is gone completly. When i look at my excel sheet i have not smoked over 24.000 cigarettes and have not inhaled appx 145 gramm of tar. My fears and worst nightmares: I really fear what our health agencies are trying to do. the FDA, WHO and EU doing their best to overregulate ecigs which will probably kill the best combatant against tabacco caused illnesses in the 21st century. How can it be that every ecig-study shows how much less risky (appx 99%) they are compared to normal tabacco cigarettes, and still they want to regulate them MORE, while normal tabacco is still available everwhere (even to minors – as the starting ages for smoking is showing) I dont want that ecigs get sold to minors – BUT as long as the starting ago of tabacco smoking is under 18 (like in germany or austria where its about 15 years) – the FDA/WHO/EU should first work on tabacco abuse, and support ecigs – as they are much safer. The WHO anticipates over 1 billion premature deaths from tabacco in this century, and the keep saying that cigarettes are safer because they have a filter !!?!? despite ALL the studies who say otherwise …. this has absolutly nothing to do with an health organication, its almost the opposite … sad for human health. we know from history that prohibition does not work, and overregulation doesnt either. So what will be the outcome of the EU (ecigs are a medicinal product). We will get safer mini-ecigs (from BAT, Lorillard and Phillip Morris – the ones who can afford the certifications), these are ecigs which no heavy ex-smoker wants or uses … they are overpriced, unhandy, too small and the lack of variety of liquids will make them NOT APPEALING. No seasoned vaper will suggest such ecigs to a starter … so we will get ecigs in drugstores which nobody wants … reminds me of NRTs 🙂 Destroying the best alternative to cigarettes will cost many lives, but as it seems the WHO does not care. QUIT OR DIE policies do not work, the WHO and other anti-tabacco are trying for decades to reduce smoking. Yes, they achieved to bring the figures down, but and they failed in the fight against Big-tabacco!! with the help of the EU the billion ƒ?ª market gets shared between Bigtabacco and Bigpharma. This is the last place where our smoking alternative should be !!!!! they lied to us for decades, many of you still remember the tabacco-ads in the old days 🙂 Please do not ruin the best and only safer alternative to smoking tabacco !! Many vapers, myself included, will swith back … My conclusion: I don’t want to quit my nicotine addiction, the same way that i dont want to quit my coffee, alcohol useage or my love for chocolate and riding motorcycles – I know it would be much healthier and better to stop it all – BUT I DONT WANT TO STOP!!! and i don’t want that people who have no real knowledge and expirience of vaping (FDA/EU/WHO) to overregulate them or regulate them more than tabacco – the outcome will backfire … its common sense that getting a big boulder dropped on your head is more unhealthy than a small pebble – we dont need to wait for long term studies, when all available studies by now show the risk reduction from ecigs compared to tabacco cigarettes. Please dont make it harder for adults to get working, proven ecigs (not the cigarettelike miniecigs !!! which current tabacco companies are selling) than it is to bug normal cigarettes. And if you have no clue what the difference between cartos, clearomizers, and all the different ecig types on the market today is, please dont try to regulate them without help from professionals who know whats it all about. sorry for the long letter and the bad grammar, but english is not my mother tongue. Greetings from Europe Michael U.