I just signed the petition and ended up with quite a long "comment", which I may use to send some letters to government figures. I must say that I was quite proud with what I ended up with and thought I'd share it here, in case anyone wants to copy it, in part or whole.
WARNING : Wall of text incoming!!
"I am new to using the electronic cigarette, but I am very excited about incorporating it into my life. In the long run, I believe that it will improve my health and my potential burden to the healthcare system, when compared to my continued use of tobacco cigarettes as a two pack a day smoker.
Studies in New Zealand have already been conducted, and concluded by Dr. Murray Laugesen, a recognized expert in the field of the effects of cigarette smoking, to be a less harmful alternative than smoking tobacco cigarettes. If the most reasonable course of continuing to allow these devices to be legally purchased by the general public while objective, independant studies are conducted in the US, I am certain that similar conclusions will be made.
The data shows that countries that rely on tax revenue, generated by the sale of tobacco products, to offset the cost of the public healthcare needed to treat the health complications caused by the use of these products, is much worse off than countries that simply have a lower percentage of the population that use these tobacco products. In the United States of America, where the citizens are granted the freedom to choose to smoke tobacco cigarettes, knowing the high probability that health complications will be caused by this use, the electronic cigarette is currently the most likely product that will allow our country to become a closer model of a country that has a lower percentage of the population that smokes tobacco cigarettes.
If it is the general public's well-being that the Federal Government is truly trying to protect, then I believe it to be indisputable that the use of the electronic cigarette should actually be actively promoted by the leadership that the people of this country have chosen to represent us.