It's been awhile since I've checked in here, but I just passed my one year anniversary off of tobacco products, and I wanted to say thank you to ECF and all of the wonderful people here who have been so generous in their encouragement and knowledge. As a physician who 'should know better', I have a clear understanding of the addictive power of tobacco alkaloids and their hold on people, and the tremendous difficulty that smokers face when trying to confront their addiction. I started smoking 40 years ago when smoking was cool and we didn't understand how harmful it was. By the time I became a doctor and the evidence started to come in that smoking was terribly bad for you, it was basically too late for me; I was seriously hooked, and through the years I tried it all (and always failed) in an effort to free myself from this nasty and destructive habit. It wasn't until after suffering a heart attack, peripheral vascular disease, and early COPD, my cardiologist suggested I look in this new device called an e-cigarette. I did, and was underwhelmed at what was available at that time, and was very confused by the generally poor information available on the internet. There was one exception though, which was the e-cigarette forum, which was full of people who were successful in kicking the habit when nothing else had worked, and were extremely anxious to help us newbies acquire the knowledge necessary to find the right equipment and strategies to finally achieve success when nothing else had worked. Basically because of you folks and this organization, I am sincerely grateful and very proud to say that I haven't had a cigarette in over a year and I know that I never will again. So thank you, thank you, thank you. On another note, as many of you are aware, CASAA has been fighting an uphill battle as more and more communities enact vaping bans and the FDA is making clear that it is no friend of the vaping community, so I would encourage everyone to become more vocal in their support of liberal policies with regards to vaping as a critically important public health measure that it appears to me has greater success in weaning addicts from tobacco products than any other method available currently. Importantly one should remember that although there are many anti-tobacco zealots out there who are not interested in the evidence of efficacy and safety, the scientific and medical communities (including the FDA) are interested in high quality academically driven (not pharma) peer-reviewed studies to show that vaping is safe and effective before the tide is likely to turn. Anecdotal evidence such as my story and those of pretty much everyone else in this community just doesn't cut it as a basis for policy or legislation. Therefore, please let your representatives know that in addition to not pushing restrictive bans on the basis of prejudice and poor research, you would like to see more NIH money pumped into quality research to provide the evidence that is still needed.
