Before quitting, I was a self medicating smoker who smoked from 1.5 to 3 packs of cigarettes a day for 10 years from the age of 25 to the age of 35. I used cigarettes to cope with chronic depression and anxiety for which I was prescribed medication. Every unsuccessful attempt to quit smoking prior to using electronic cigarettes resulted in rather significant bouts of anxiety attacks; some of which were very severe; all of the attempts to quit prior to this resulted in weight gain; I weighed 195lbs when I first started smoking and at one point I reached 275lbs after trying to quit. I switched to electronic cigarettes at age 35 after ordering an electronic cigarette kit off the internet. In the days between I purchased disposable cigarettes for use while waiting for it to arrive in the mail. While I did not like the electronic cigarette kit that I originally purchased very much, I searched out better, more advanced alternatives and within two months was 100% smoke free. In particular, I stopped using the pre-filled disposable cartridges which were/are, for lack of a better word, horrible. The companies that make these products like to market them as high quality, but to be perfectly honest they either have barely any taste at all or taste exactly like a pile of burning tires. My health improved dramatically after I quit. My weight dropped from 275lbs to 215lbs which was a result of diet and minimal exercise; I felt great. My weight has climbed back up to 235lbs since then in a years time, but I still feel far healthier than I did when I smoked cigarettes. My most significant health concern was not my weight but my lungs. I have always had respiratory issues with moderate to severe chest congestion. When smoking it was quite normal to cough up ugly brown mucus. I got frequent chest infections, including pneumonia (but I still smoked even with the pneumonia though for some days I was barely able to speak and was bed ridden). I was prescribed an asthma inhaler at the age of 31, six years into smoking. Since quitting I have no refilled my prescription for my inhaler and have not felt I needed it. I understand the current controversy over the fear of the unknown represented by electronic cigarettes, but I feel that they were an incredible tool for me to quit. The body of research necessary to draw conclusions about electronic cigarettes vs. analog cigarettes is not complete enough to clinically draw a conclusion; however, what is known is that cigaretttes represent a VERY SEVERE risk to the public health. Furthermore, while some testing has shown hazardous chemicals in some electronic cigarette eliquid but to my knowledge, those chemicals were identified and can also easily be replaced with safer alternatives. I understand that nicotine is still a health hazard for me but seeing that I was unable to quit before I discovered electronic cigarettes. I find the idea that electronic cigarette options would be limited while tobacco sales are still allowed to be nothing short of madness given the well documented harm and global loss of life from cigattes and other tobacco products. I know the fear is that electronic cigarettes may somehow be a gateway drug to tobacco for youth but given that all an 18 year old needs to do to purchase tobacco currently is scrape together about a dollar for a swisher sweet cigar, I really think any attempt to all but minimally regulate electronic cigarette sales, other than the banning of specific harmful ingredients in eliquid, should be reconsidered with severe moral and ethical gravity given the potential for loss of life were anyone to return to smoking for want of currently easily obtainable satisfaction. I’ve heard some mention of some returning to pre-filled eliquid cartridges… this is a very bad idea. It is my firm belief that this only serves the interests of big tobacco, companies that deal in analog cigarettes (aka, the death dealing SMOKING industry), and certain prefilled cartridge manufacturers who produce a terrible product that relies on the lack of knowledge of better alternatives in consumers to hock their wares. (Specifically, I’m calling out the manufacturers of the BLU ecig which, to be frank, is an overpriced piece of crap that people only buy because they don’t know enough about electronic cigarettes to make an informed choice). Forcing such a ridiculous restriction only serves to rob the consumer of higher quality alternatives to smoking and paves the way for large businesses to enforce a monopoly wherein only wildly over-priced, low quality prefilled cartridges are available. Thank you for reading. If you have any other questions, feel free to contact me.