All told, I smoked cigarettes from the time I was 16 until I was 62, a total of 46 years. During most of that time, I smoked three packs per day. I also supplemented my cigarette consumption with three to five pipefuls of pipe tobacco. In February 2011, I switched to nearly exclusive use of e-cigarettes. Perhaps once every six weeks to two months, I’ll smoke a pipe. Many days I’ll also smoke a single cigarette. (I have a goodly collection of premium imported cigarettes, kept in a humidor, for visitors and an occasional treat for myself. I’ve invested in them so, by gum, I’ll smoke them all. Eventually.) Over the years, I had tried to quit tobacco cigarettes probably 25 or more times. All such efforts were fruitless. I had tried cold turkey, the patch and the gum. After reviewing Chantix’s lawsuit history, I concluded that any physician prescribing this drug was violating his/her Hippocratic Oath. I can’t be hypnotized. And I won’t have anything to do with groups. (I have trigeminal neuralgia, and many years ago, I got involved with such a group. I quit in about a year, after about half the participants had committed suicide. Mighty depressing. Before there were effective medications, trigeminal neuralgia used to be known as the suicide disease thanks to the pain.) My original impetus to try e-cigarettes was horizontal sleet. Having to duck outside to have a smoke when at a tavern or restaurant was a pain. I wanted a smoking substitute so I wouldn’t have to brave the weather. Quitting was the furthest thing from my mind. But after working with the primitive hardware and less than wonderful flavors available at the time, I discovered I actually had quit heavy dependence on cigarettes within a couple of days. And I’ve stayed off them (pretty much) for the last two and a half years. HEALTH BENEFITS: When I smoked, I used to get three or four colds per year. I haven’t had a single cold in two and a half years. I no longer cough (unless I vape too much menthol-flavored e-liquid, but that’s from post-nasal drip). I don’t get winded when I run up stairs, and I have no problem walking long distances. My blood pressure dropped 10 points, both systolic and diastolic. My gums have returned to a normal pink from sort of a brownish maroon. I can taste and smell somewhat better. Here’s where I’d like to explode three myths the FDA seems to be mistakenly operating under: MYTH: Flavored e-liquids encourage children to try e-cigarettes. REALITY: Have any of you actually tried these flavors? There’s always a cedary-cinnamony-bitterness from the nicotine nearly overwhelming any flavoring. And such an overtone is very much an acquired taste. Also, the alcohol in which many of the flavorings are dissolved further distorts the taste/smell of the flavoring itself. Finally, the flavor extraction process for many flavors involves masticating whole fruits, so there’s a distinct undertone of bitter seeds and rind included. All these factors combine to make flavored e-liquids a distinct turn-off to anyone without a matured and experienced palate. The flavors are there simply to make the distasteful barely palatable. MYTH: Just as with cigarettes being smoked by adults, e-cigarettes being vaped by adults encourage children to take up the habit. REALITY: I used to coach baseball and run a youth baseball league. A couple of years ago, during the course of the spring, summer and fall seasons, I vaped openly at the baseball parks in the presence of well over 1,500 different budding baseball players, all of middle school and high school freshman age. This age cohort is exactly the most vulnerable to adult-mimicking behavior. And most of those players were at the diamond without their parents being present. Over the course of those three seasons, I had exactly three players ask me about vaping. Every one of them wanted to know because they had parents or older siblings who smoked, and they hoped to modify their behavior. By contrast, probably 50 or 60 parents asked — again, with the goal of modifying their own behavior. My conclusion is that our youth indoctrination programs have done such a thorough job of inculcating hatred of cigarette smoking that any FDA efforts in this direction are superfluous and a waste of taxpayers’ money. MYTH: An FDA ban on internet sales of e-liquids and vaping hardware would effectively reduce vaping. REALITY: In my opinion, all such a ban would do is drive many internet businesses under and put thousands of people out of work, slow down or halt improvement of vaping hardware and e-liquids, and be largely unenforceable, thereby encouraging distain and hatred for authority, ?ΓΏ la Prohibition. 1) Tobacco grows like a weed in all 50 states and, while not for the home operator, nicotine extracting hardware and chemicals are not expensive for a black market extracter. 2) The flavorings used for e-liquids are identical to flavorings used for baked goods, candies and other edible items, so those can’t be banned without causing a general revolt of the populace. 3) Usable vaping hardware can be made with few modifications from other devices and easily obtained supplies used throughout the economy, and you can’t ban such things as flashlights, laptop computers, toasters and sweaters. Such a ban would not reduce vaping, but instead would only drive it underground.