I was 19 the first time I smoked a cigarette. Within a week of lighting my first cigarette I was smoking a pack a day. Over nearly 30 years that increase gradually to about 2 packs a day. I tried light cigarettes at various time, and that just doubled my smoking consumption. I tried many ways to quit smoking; patches, nicotine gum, cold turkey, hypnosis. None of them worked very well or for very long. I also travel quite a bit for work, and have seen hotels gradually go all non-smoking. Rental car companies will fine you for smoking in their cars. Vendor sites I traveled to sometimes had a total non-smoking policy, and I’d have to leave the building, walk across the parking lot and stand on a sidewalk to smoke. That doesn’t even count the disruption to meetings when I’d hit my time limit and have to go outside for another smoke. I heard about electronic cigarettes for the first time in 2010. I decided they were a gimmick and a waste of money. Then I took a trip and came back home, and the rental car company contacted me to tell me they were charging an additional $250 for the rental, because of the smell. I hadn’t smoked in the car, but I guess climbing in and out of it with smoke all over me had made the car smell. I fought it, and won, but decided I wouldn’t face that again. I bought one of the stupid, gimmick fake cigarettes to use when I travel. Shortly after that I had to go to NY for a week. When I flew back into LAX I couldn’t wait to get to my car and smoke a real cigarette. I picked up my car, picked up my cigarette, inhaled deep, and almost coughed up a lung. It was disgusting. I had to stop and brush my teeth in a convenience store bathroom, just to get the taste out of my mouth. That was in December of 2010, and I haven’t had a cigarette since then. I’m also on the ERT (Emergency Response Team) at my company, and they give me a physical every year. They include lung function because I’m rated to wear and use a SCBA (Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus). My last physical showed I have the lung function of an 18 year old non-smoker, when I’m well into middle age. After years of arguing with my doctor about going on Lipitor (he was for it, I was against it), my bad cholesterol is way down, and my good cholesterol is way up. My doctor no longer considers me at risk for heart disease. My triglyceride level has also gone down, and is right in the middle of the normal range. I have made no lifestyle changes – no new diet, no new exercise. I just stopped inhaling the smoke from a burning plant 40 times a day and switched to an electronic cigarette. I realize this is anecdotal, not a study, and I realize I may not be representative of all e-cig users, but there can be no question that e-cigs have been beneficial to me. I’m healthier and will live a longer, more satisfying life because of them.