On January 2nd of this year (2014), I was smoking between 2 and 2 and a half packs of cigarettes a day and had been a smoker for over 25 years. Prior to that day I had tried a number of things to reduce the amount i smoked but no matter what I tried, whether it was the patch, nicorette gum, or various brands of the cigalikes like blue, enjoy or metros, nothing really worked or was even a close substitute to actually smoking so I was more than a little skeptical when some friends showed me their electronic vaporizers. (Just on a side note I prefer the name electronic vaporizer (ev) or mod to electronic cigarette because they really bear no resemblance to an actual CIG at all so that’s how I’ll be referring to them from here on.) I was amazed when I saw the new evs, and how they seemed to be giving good hits every time. My experience with the cigalikes often resulted in me drawing on them repeatedly before getting a decent hit so this was a big deal for me and the primary factor in me deciding to try a refillable ev. I bought my first ev on January 3, 2014 and at the time I still had 5 packs of cigs left in the carton I’d just bought on new years eve. As soon as I tried my new ev I knew this thing was different than anything I’d ever tried before and ended up only smoking a few more cigs that day. Each and every day after that was the same way, i didn’t just throw my cigs out though, I smoked every one of my remaining ones because I didn’t want to rush into something only to have it bite me in the backside, but it took me the rest of the month to finish them and on the morning of February 1st I smoked my last CIG and as of right now, June 14, 2014, I haven’t had a CIG since. Within a few days of my starting to use my ev regularly I noticed that I had stopped spending the fist 10 to 15 mins of my mornings hacking and coughing so hard I felt as if I were going to throw up. Within a couple of weeks I was breathing much easier, even able to sprint a few hundred feet without feeling like I couldn’t get any oxygen into my lungs afterwards……I can’t tell you how good that actually felt. And by this point I no longer have any rasp or wheeze in my lungs, which has been a constant companion of mine for the last several years. Just today in fact I ran the first time in 12 years at the gym, and after almost 20 mins on the treadmill my legs were burning but my lungs weren’t. All in all I feel amazing and getting better everyday so it just amazes me that people are knocking these as hard as they are. After all these years of being told I need to quit smoking I’ve finally found something that worked almost effortlessly with no more risk to my health than drinking coffee or energy drinks only to have people try to take them away. and all their arguements seemed to be based on nothing. I’ll admit that when I first tried my ev and experienced the results I figured there had to be some downside so spent hours online researching the various ingredients only to find that they are all pretty much harmless, fda approved, been around for decades, and used in both the food and medical industries. So what exactly is the issue I wonder and wish with all my heart that people would just leave this product, that has the potential to take millions of people away from smoking, alone.