My story is of trying to find a way to finally beat cigarettes. I was a 35 year old pack a day smoker in 2009, having smoked since I was 15. A friend called me and told me about e-cigarettes, and at first, I mistook it for like an e-card, something sent via email as a support measure. Once it was clear what it was, I had to try one, and I drove an hour the next day to buy one. I had previously tried other OTC and prescription NRTs to no avail. I tried the gum, which I found gave me heartburn, and made me feel ill a lot. I was later diagnosed with Crohn??s Disease in 2010, and learned that could have been why. I then tried the patch system, which actually gave me very bad red marks on my arms where I would apply them, which would be irritated and burn. I??ve never been one to have sensitive skin, so it was a mystery to me. For the time I did use them, I found them very un-affective in relation to their intended purpose. I still would smoke, despite knowing it was not wise medically to do so while using other NRT options. I sought advice multiple times from a physician for ways to best address me quitting. I even attended a local Stop Cessation class offered locally, which I found a good experience, but within 2 weeks of the class ending, I was fully smoking again, and back to trying various NRT methods. I then opted to try the inhalator NRT system, which was the worst of all, and all it did was make me mad. Simply because I was putting a ??stick? looking thing into my mouth, drawing in, and when I exhaled and seen nothing, and felt nothing in my lungs, it was hard to deal with that mentally. My physician suggested Chantix. I had done my research and already having been a person who does not like to take hardly any medications, I was not prepared to come to grips with the possible side effects, versus the potential result, even if it worked. My daughter was born in April of 2005 prior to any of my stop smoking attempts, and she was a major contributing factor to me stopping. I still remember as my fianc?? and my newborn daughter were in the hospital, I would go down the back steps out back and smoke. I was a first time father at 31 years old, and I was nervous, and cigarettes were my calm. I would come back up, and use the hand sanitizer pumps in their room, to sanitize my hands, AND face in attempts to kill the smell and get the stale funk off of me, so I could hold my daughter. After a couple days, my face started to peel like it had been sunburned, not realizing the alcohol in the hand sanitizer would dry my skin, and my face, was like a snake shedding it??s skin for over a week. I tried all those NRT therapies to no avail. I really wanted to quit, and they still did not work. I really had my full heart and mind into quitting, but the available NRT??s did not work for me, no matter how much I wanted them to, for the reasons I previously explained. So after my friend introduced me to e-cigarettes and I got one, on August the 8th of 2009 I first used it. That day, is the last day I have had a regular tobacco cigarette!!! Over 4 years without a single ??analog? cigarette, short of one time, 6 months later to test my reception to them. I lit one up, took a draw, and the taste was so incredibly nasty to me, I coughed so much, I vomited. I will go on official record that where I may have lit that cigarette, I certainly did NOT inhale! 😉 It never made it that far before I felt so ill, and had to be sick. Over the past four years, I have continued to use an electronic cigarette daily, in some way shape or form and they have changed so much in that time. I have reduced my nicotine intake by slowly lowering the nicotine content in the fluid I use. Where I have not fully stopped ingesting nicotine in my body, over the course of 4 years, I have reduced that nicotine intake, and I have had a clean bill of health the last 3 years during my annual wellness exam. Prior to quitting smoking, I did have a few issues that needed addressed. Without changing my diet, and only switching to completely using an e-cigarette, all of those things are well within the normal range, most importantly, my lung function. I will continue to drop my nicotine intake, and hopefully someday soon, be free of nicotine??s clutches! In the meantime, not smelling funky all the time, being able to cut, weed wack, and spray weed killer on my entire property without being winded, not to mention my wife and daughter not kissing an ashtray, is enough! I feel leaps and bounds better, my health is confirmed better, and I tend to believe, if there was something bad in e-cig fluid, that may well not be the case. My health IS confirmed to be better. It??s also worth noting that through this all, I personally feel better education for health professionals would be advisable. I was shocked to hear when I had my last annual wellness exam, the young woman who seen me, when asking me if I smoked, after me telling her I had used an e-cigarette for almost 4 years, proceeded to tell me that was not good. I then informed of her of all the hundreds and hundreds of chemicals I was no longer ingesting in my body and that I may still get nicotine, it??s not the nicotine in cigarettes that get you, it??s the tar, formaldehyde, and hundreds of other chemicals that cause cancer. She proceeded to tell me, the most shocking thing, by telling me, ??nicotine causes cancer, you knew that right?? I was shocked at this, because there is no medical, or scientific proof of such. I proceeded to tell her that the nicotine is not at all proven to cause cancer, it??s all the other nasty chemicals added to cigarettes that cause cancer. I asked her did she know there are trace amounts of nicotine often found in tomatoes? She was unaware. I have not been back to that physician since. So in turn, proper education on the subject matter to physicians, would be very helpful in allowing a physician to properly, and without bias, have the best ability to discuss with a patient, full options for them as a smoker, when conveying the desire to stop using tobacco. In closing, to stop the sale of e-cigarettes, would be a grave injustice to mankind. I am just one of the stories of having finally been able to stop smoking tobacco cigarettes with one, when no other NRT methods were remotely effective on me. I firmly believe electronic cigarette devices have the potential to do the same for many others. I truly believe that e-cigarettes could have very well saved my life, they have at the very least, gotten me off of tobacco cigarettes in turn, allowing me to very likely live longer than I would, had I continued to smoke tobacco cigarettes. Thank you for your time. Tobacco free since August 8th, 2009 with an e-cigarette! Sincerely, Todd Cuzzort, 39 Indiana