My name is Stephen Blake and I’m a 23 year old student from Houston, Texas. I smoked cigarettes for a little over 6 years which ranged from Camel Frost to Marlboro Ultralights. It has been about a month and a half from today (4/30/2014) since I have had a cigarette or even a drag of one because of smoke-free alternatives. I began using an ego vape but quickly upgraded to a Tesla MOD for a better vape. I started with 6mg of nicotine, which is the lowest besides nicotine free, and have not gone up or down. I actually still had two cigarettes left when I began using my vape and never smoked them. In other words I completely stopped smoking when I began vaping. Bottom line is you won’t quit smoking unless you want to, vaping just provides a better, more interesting alternative to nicotine gum or a patch. I am highly against prescription medicine and heard stories of people hallucinating while taking Chantix, a person of which who is a medical doctor, so that was never an option. I have noticed nothing but positive effects from switching to a smoke-free alternative. These benefits include a better sense of smell, a better sense of taste, I can breathe again, I don’t smell like a cigarette, I can exercise efficiently as I did before I started smoking and the list goes on. The reason why the FDA wants to regulate or ban vaping is because their friends at Phillip Morris and other big tobacco companies that they get kickbacks from are losing too much money. If they actually cared about their customers they would have been developing a safer alternative. But lets face it, they don’t want their bottom line hurt by research for a safe alternative to the dangerous, pesticide filled cancer sticks they peddle.