I started smoking cigarettes at fourteen years old. I smoked up to two packs a day by the time I was sixteen. My friends and family would always tell me how bad it was and how the smell would stick around. Around the age of seventeen my friends found out about e-cigarettes and urged me to try them. During the begining it was hard to stick with just vaping, it just wasn’t the same, but after a few months it was easier to go longer without any traditional cigarettes. Now I’m proud to say it’s been over a year since the last time I smoked a traditional cigarette, and over a year that I have been using electronic cigarettes. I truly believe that if e-cigarettes weren’t around I would still be smoking cigarettes and my health would be in great danger. E-cigarettes truly give smokers a way out, an alternative to the health problems traditional cigarettes can cause, while at the same time breaking a horrible addiction and ultimately not feeling like you want to go back. Back when I started vaping selection and devices were limited, now with the amazing progress the technology has made it is nearly impossible for someone to not be able to find a device that works for them. I believe that every single smoker deserves the opportunity to a second chance. I believe in a united America that allows it’s citizens a fighting chance against a product so popular yet so harmful to health that fathers are buried by sons and daughters that have yet to go to college, mothers widowed with children, parents burying children who were pressured by friends too young, and the saddest part of it all is that we as a country have allowed tobacco products to be so easily accessible and so popular. I believe in a healthier United States of America.