I smoked 2 packs of coffin nails a day for over 40 years, most of the last part of those years I’d wished I’d never started. I’d heard it was pretty hard to quit but hadn’t yet to find out for myself just how hard. I began having more and more family members die of lung cancer at young ages, the youngest was 46. Most were in their 50s, my dad was 76. In 2009 my cousin, who was 2 years older than me and also my best friend, was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer that had already spread to his brain. He was 58 yrs old. He only lived for 2 months after the diagnosis. This is when I decided to quit. I’d learned that some families could be predisposed to lung cancer from smoking and I didn’t want to die that way, nor did I want to give any more money to the cigarette companies by buying their product that was killing my family. I visited my doctor for his help to quit smoking. This started an almost year long battle that started off with nicotine patches, the nicotine gum, nicotine lozenges and finally Chantix pills. I could not believe I was so much of a slave to this habit. I couldn’t quit and resigned to the fact I would be a smoker till I died. I bought roll your own tobacco to save money because I couldn’t even cut down. Laws were being passed banning smoking in public places and I found myself doing less and less as my life was controlled by smoking. On November 4th 2010 I bought a disposable e-cig from a nearby store. It was a cheapy, but it worked. I wasn’t smoking. After 3 weeks I started noticing the stench from cigarettes in my house and had to wash my bedding, curtains and clothes. How did I not notice such a smell as a smoker is just amazing. I found a place online to buy ejuice and learned to refill the cartridge with better tasting ejuice. Within months I’d bought a better e-cigarette device and then later a newer advanced vaporizer with variable voltage and a tank to hold the eliquid. I felt secure spending the money knowing now that this really worked for me. I enjoy tobacco, coffee and dessert flavors at 18mg nicotine. My kids, mom and siblings are extremely happy I was now a non-smoker. My breathing returned to normal, and my taste buds have re-activated. I can walk further without getting winded. I’ve been off cigarettes for almost three years, and it’s nothing short of a miracle in my eyes. My mother is elderly and has COPD and asthma. She can’t be around someone smoking even outside at a distance without coughing, but I can sit in an enclosed car and use my e-cigarette and it doesn’t bother her a bit. She even likes the fleeting smell of the cinammon or coffee flavors. This convinces me that vapor is very different from smoke, and very much safer for me and those around me. I would have thought that all those people who were ”anti-smoking crusaders” would also be happy I’d stopped smoking, but to my utter surprise this hasn’t been the case. Except for friends and family, it seems there are certain people who’d like to take the e-cig away from me, or regulate it beyond my ability to benefit from it. I don’t understand this, I really don’t. If their concern is really about health, then hands down I’m better off today than 3 years ago. I know the 3 to 4 ingredients in my e-cig have been deemed safe for use in food, asthma inhalers and other uses, and being almost 60 yrs old I feel I should be free to chose this over the 75,000+ chemicals in tobacco smoke, many known to be cancerous and toxic. I’m just an average guy who stopped smoking using an e-cigarette. Why politics is involved in this, I don’t know. I like saving money, being healthy and being a non-smoker, and I hope to dance at my great granddaughter’s wedding someday.