I was smoking from the time I came home from the hospital as a baby as my mother smoked two packs a day and my grandmother four a day. I knew the smell of smoke and the comfort it gave my family far better than anything else in the world. Smoking was peace, smoking was a hand to hold when the world fell apart or when it was in celebration. I learned how to function in life by watching my family consume cigarettes. That I could never let go of. When I was 18 my mother and grandmother started using nicorette gum and I was suddenly in a smoke-free home. I was detoxing and in withdrawal but had no gum to help me! I went right out and bought a pack of smokes and have used them ever since (till now.) I have tried to quit smoking many times mostly because I could not stand their taste or smell any longer. I would chew the gum but it didn’t mimic the habits I had set in place. Feel impatient/worried/stressed have a smoke. Finish a meal, have a smoke. Wake up, have smoke. Going to bed, have a smoke. Because the patch, gum and medication did not allow for these habit patterns I would smoke anyway. When I chewed the gum I chewed constantly and even had smokes while chewing the gum. My nicotine usage skyrocketed. So I went back to cigarettes because I was using less nicotine just smoking than trying anything else. Many of my friends had used e-cigs to kick the habit but I blew them off. I figured I would die smoking. My boss at work sent me new information she had gotten from her nephew who had quit using an e-cig and the flavors and mechanics of the product had so improved I was intrigued. I found a local store and made the commitment to go the next day just as they opened. I was so excited I could barely sleep. I walked in the store, chose a starter kit and some e-liquids and they gave me the hands-on showing of how to use the products, what may go wrong in filling the tanks and how to fix them, everything I could think to ask. I took my first draw of an orange flavored e-liquid and I was done with cigarettes, DONE! I was thrilled with the e-cig as I could mimic my former cigarette habits perfectly. Fool with the liquids by filling tanks and choosing more exciting flavors and trying them all and learning what I do and do not like for flavors. This is so very liberating! The most exciting part for me is I can lower the nicotine content while keeping my smoking habits. I will continue using the e-cig even when I have no more nicotine in my e-liquid, (my eventual goal) and I will never smoke again! BECAUSE OF THE E-CIG I WILL NEVER, NEVER, NEVER SMOKE AGAIN!!! If this product had not been available to me I would be smoking right now as I write this but I am not! E-cigs are the very best thing that has ever happened to me, EVER! If I am forbidden from using these any longer I will go back to smoking, no question. Every person who votes to outlaw e-cigs will be responsible for my cigarette related illnesses. E-cigs are a blessing and should be celebrated for finally allowing many to not even want one cigarette. I smell them as others smoke and I do not crave them, just hold my e-cig closer. My doctors are thrilled, my family is shocked and thrilled, my coworkers are thrilled and blown away at how easy this was for me. Everyone is spreading the word to all of the people they know who are in serious conditions due to smoking who could never quit with anything else before. Many of them are surprised and thrilled to NOT be smoking, at last! As for my mother and grandmother they stayed on the gum. My grandmother went through so much so fast she would steal it from my mother and swallowed the gum all the time even when it said not to. She died in 1996 of an embolism thanks to the nicotine. My mother still chews the gum even though her dentist said the six Root Canals she has had since starting the gum is directly related to her chewing the nicorette gum, it is destroying her teeth and gums but she won’t stop even after using it for 25 years as she will go back to smoking. She is now chewing more gum than the amount of nicotine she was smoking. Now if she would try an e-cig she would not be smoking and her teeth and gums could heal. She might even get off the nicotine for the first time for most of her life. If this could be possible, if my experience could be possible, if all the stories surrounding e-cigs COULD be possible WHY would anyone EVER think we should outlaw these wonderful products?