I first started smoking at the age of 12, nearly 40 years ago. My father smoked and through peer pressure and the desire to be grown up I started and despite age restrictions we always managed to find vending machines that we could use. My sister also started smoking at a similar time. I was also an asthmatic so despite this I still smoked and got addicted to them. In fact my smoking habit probably increased the use of my ventolin inhaler as I would use the inhaler to clear up my airways in order to enjoy a cigarette. Roll on 25 years and my father died of emphysema a smoking related condition. It was at this point that both my sister and I seriously realised that we needed to give up smoking, but back then there wasn’t the stigma attached to smoking and tobacco that there is today so it was more a conscious decision to give up ??some day?.. I did try giving up and managed for 3-4 months without any help or assistance, but I missed the hand mouth co-ordination and the psychological habit triggers I associated with smoking made me commence smoking again. I was regularly smoking between 20-30 cigarettes a day. My sister in the meantime got diagnosed with cancerous skin melanomas and subsequently through her doctor tried giving up smoking and was prescribed all the nicotine therapies that were available at the time. She wasn’t able to give up despite all the nicotine replacement products including therapy and hypnosis. I in the meantime resigned myself to maybe giving up at some time, but my sister’s experience with all the NRT products led me to conclude that it was will power only that would work with me, but sadly I actually didn’t want to give up. I enjoyed smoking in the same way that I enjoyed drinking strong coffee. Then 18 months ago I visited my sister and she was now using a vaping device and had not smoked a cigarette for a few months. She tried to convince me to try, but I was initially reluctant and so continued smoking tobacco cigarettes. I basically didn’t want to give up smoking, as I actually enjoyed the whole social and calming affect that cigarettes provided. Next time I visited her last September 2012 she gave me a present of a similar device that she was using. It looked like a metal ink pen and was a simple mod called an Ego C with a separate rechargeable battery and atomisers that you could replace together with a small 1.1 ml liquid cartridge that held the liquid. I realised that if my sister could give up tobacco by using this device, than there must be something in them so after charging it up over night I started using it and I haven’t smoked a tobacco cigarette since. I haven’t wanted one. I haven’t craved for one. In fact I can categorically state that e-cigs are by far the most useful device that I have encountered over my lifetime. I am still using the same device, although I now mix my own liquid. I can self regulate the strength of nicotine that I choose to vape, and also try different flavours. E-cigs or vaping I believe have totally transformed not only my current life, but probably my future too. I no longer smell. I no longer snore. I no longer wheeze at night. My lung capacity has increased so that walking my dog up hills no longer fills me with dread or discomfort from heavy breathing. It does not affect anyone else, but totally satisfies my need to hold something in my hand and replicate smoking. I’ve tried reducing the nicotine strength, but for me, for now at least I find that I need a strength of 15-18 mg to satisfy me. I now know that the EU are looking to heavily restrict these wonderful life saving devices, through the misconception that they are potentially dangerous. Millions of people are now using them and the reason is because they are safe and effective at what they do ?? namely replace the harm caused by smoking cigarettes and obtaining nicotine to a safe means of obtaining nicotine, that fundamentally satisfies smokers. It would be a travesty of immense proportions if ANYTHING was altered that would restrict in any way the use of these devices. My sister was prescribed Chantix a regulated NRT drug that caused her severe depression. Having medically regulated drugs is simply no guarantee of public safety and its ironic that e-cigs are now suggested as needing ??safer? regulation, when all the evidence begs the question ??Why?.