Lost both my parents (smokers) to cancer. In fact, my mom passed from lung cancer 1 year after I was diagnosed with cancer at 37. I am now 44, and still am fighting it. My first 6 months of chemo I was still smoking. I would make the nurses tape up my port every few hours so I could go outside to have a cigarette, the very thing that was keeping me in that chair while toxic poison was dripped in my veins to try to kill the toxic poisons the cigarettes put in there. How sick is that? I’m dying, right now, from cancer, and I still wasn’t able to stop smoking for months.I smoked for 30 years.

My sister is 50, and has been on oxygen full time for her copd since 44. She also smoked for 30 years. For some of us the damage is permanent, even though we now vape. It’s not too late for others.

The media uses the exploding battery fear (uneducated) and nicotine overdoses (lazy) to scare people. The few accidents are a very small percentage. Even with those few people that are injured, it’s a tiny percentage of people and doesn’t even compare to the death and disease caused by smoking. It’s offensive to me that sensationalism is more important than lives and contributes to the death of smokers because of fear.

Yes, let’s keep encouraging people to smoke, which kills thousands every year. Worldwide, tobacco use causes nearly 6 million deaths per year, and current trends show that tobacco use will cause more than 8 million deaths annually by 2030. Rather than to vape, which hurts a couple hundred idiots per year? And those are probably the same idiots that ride their bikes without helmets, it’s common sense people! You try to explain to your children when they are 5 and 8 years old what cancer is and why you are dying. Then explain about battery safety and careless people. Let them pick the more risky activity.

Ok, I’ll get of my soapbox now, sorry. I started vaping back when the Blu cigalikes came out. I did smoke less for a couple months with that, but continued to smoke with it. The cartridges constantly leaked into my mouth and caused burns and blisters. So I stopped. Then after further technology improved the quality of ecigs I tried again. That was in February of 2013. My official quit date is February 12, 2013, so I just passed 4 years.

After socializing on ELR and Facebook, and reading everything I could find on the internet about it, I became tempted to begin mixing quite a while before I actually took the plunge. I chose to go ahead and start more for the fun and challenge, then got even more excited when I realized how much less expensive it was to make. I ordered my first flavors and began mixing in September of 2015. So I’ve been learning to mix for about 16 months now. Wow, how time flies! I’ve been through the usual trials and tribulations of learning about flavors and how to make something vapable. It has become an exciting and fun hobby now. And occasionally I’m even lucky enough to make a recipe I actually like.