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My Story

Started smoking at age 12. Over th years i managed to pack smoking in just a couple of times, the longest period being 1 year but i always ended up back on the cigarettes.

In a 34 year priod have tried patches, gum, inhalers and of course champix. The only one which helped at all was patches ( Champix had no effect on me at all and i might as well of been eating sweets. ) but the longest period i managed was through sheer willpower.

At age 46 i was smoking rollies as the cost of 2-3 packs of cigs a day was getting to be too much. Instead i would go through about 50g of hand rolling tobacco in about 3 days.

Christmas 2012 my wife ( a lifelong non smoker) added a small cigalike ecig to the weekly shopping from Tesco and suggested i gave it a try. She was worried about me as i used to wheeze just from climbing the stairs and 'apparently' i snored too much.

I also remember coughing for about 10 minutes immediately after getting out of bed each morning and i know i had a smokers cough throughout the rest of each day as well.

For the previous 3 years i had struggled with chest infections, colds that would not go away and had bronchitis diagnosed 4 times.

Anyway, i am a bit of a gadget freak so was more than happy to try the cigalike and it lasted precisely 1 hour before running out of flavour, vapour and battery. Not exactly a great thing at £6.00 a go.

The concept however did intrigue me so over the Christmas period i did a bit of searching online looking for what consumers thought of them. I started reading forums such as UKVapers, Planet of the vapes and the ECF forum. It was here i discovered that few if any people stuck with cigalikes of any type and almost everyone posting on those forums was using more advanced versions.

On January 6th 2013 i started using my new Ego battery with a refillable tank system and it completely wowed me. I could easily see it could allow me to 'smoke' indoors and even at work instead of going out to have a quick smoke in the rain and snow. I had no real intention of packing in smoking at this time i just found it to be a good option to allow me to avoid being rained on in the middle of winter.

Fast forward a week and i realised i had not bothered to buy any tobacco for a few days and i was not really missing it. 3-4 weeks later i was hit with some withdrawal symptoms but having read about what happens on the forums i kind of expected them and was not overly worried. The excessive coughing up of crap from my lungs, the headache that lasts 3 days, the dry throat, the bleeding gums were all part of stopping smoking and the bodies method of clearing all the excess crap out.

I have been smoke free since that time and my body has improved. My lungs according to my doctor operate at full capacity and are those of non smoker. My skin has improved, i no longer wheeze, i have not had a chest infection even once, no bronchitis, i shrug off colds with ease and i do not smell ( which has really made my wife happy).

These days i use small sized box mods most of the time such as Itaste eleaf TC 40W and 50W and Similar types of kit. I mostly use refillable tanks such as the Nautilus Mini and the Naturevape mini's which are simple to maintain and easy to use when out and about.

At home i sometimes use more complex kit which allows me to sub ohm if an when i feel like it. However i am lazy and more often than not i use my normal daily kit.

I started on 24mg juice and have slowly reduced the level i use to about 16 mg. (unless i am sub ohming at which time i tend to use 2-3 mg ). I started on Tobacco flavoured juices as that was what i was used to but since i got my taste buds back i have found i like biscuit or dessert flavours more. Most of the time i use a Custard cream biscuit flavour i make for myself for my all day vape and supplement it with a with a variety of other flavours according to my mood. Everything from fruit to Menthol to custard to chocolate flavours and yes once in a while i even use a tobacco based flavour.

There is no doubt in my mind or that of my Doctor's, that switching from smoking lit tobacco to vaping has vastly improved my health and my life. I am healthier, richer and in all honesty happier.

My own story has inspired others at work and in my own social circle to try vaping and whilst it is not for everyone, it has meant as many as 30 different people have either switched completely or at least are on the way to doing so. This has taken no coercion, no peer pressure and no taxation to have this effect. 30 people with improved health at no cost to the government and with a vastly reduced risk of getting a long term illness in later life.

I do know however, of a few who refuse to switch after reading bad press articles on even worse so called research. One person who was about to take the leap, stepped back after reading there was more formaldehyde in ecigs than in cigarettes from a newspaper article. I consider poor reporting and poor research to be criminal in this context.

If people are being put off the safer option, whether through negligent research, poor methodology, junk science or due to political or monetary gain it is a crime against public health and i hold those perpetrators to blame.
I am aware of a number of culprits who are likely to find themselves taken to court in the next year or so and quite frankly i hope these culprits pay a very dear price.

 

I'm not living in Udonthani, so I'm not be present in Bangkok, but here some information about why I vape and what I think.

I an a German Dane, who have lived in Thailand the last 9 years. I was a heavy smoker since I was 18 and have been smoking 20-30 cigarettes everyday for many years. I smoked pipe some years in the 70'th and again around 2000 to 2007, where I moved to Thailand and start smoking cigarettes again. I developed a "shadow" on my lungs, as the doctors told me in Thailand, and I also could hardly breathe the last years and had the usual smoker's cough every morning and during the day. In July 2013 a friend from Denmark visited me, and he had changed his pipe to an electrical one and was quite happy for it. After he left I decided to try the same. During the last years I had tried to quit smoking, using mostly nicotine chewing gum, I also tried nicotine pads, but without success.

I managed to actually buy the same pipe my friend used on a night marked in Udonthani and started. Sorry to say that it was not that successful. There was little or no vape and after 30 minutes vaping I really needed a cigarette. Finding a more powerful e-cigarette with a tank, did it for me. Now the vape was satisfying, and after I could quit the tobacco cigarettes completely. So since 1.of August 2013 I have not had any cigarettes. What has happen. Well a year after I started vaping I had a health check, and the shadow on my lungs are gone. I breathing is a lot better and no more coughing. I even do a little exercise. I don't smell any more, no yellow fingernails or teeth, so all in all I can say that my physical condition is a lot better than it was before I start vaping. I on my own body felt the improvement, from quitting smoking and start vaping.

Today I'm 68 and that means that I quit vaping when I was 66, but if we say "it's never to late". Ever since I grew up in Germany, born in 1947 during my childhood I learned about all the crimes, that the German elderly generations commit during the Nazi era, watching a cartoon in the local cinema always started with the Newsreel where we saw the enormously mountain of dead bodies from the concentration camps, and nearly every time we heard about these criminals going to court. Well it made me ad a child already doubting the authorities and governments of my country, so I did not trust anyone older than 20. And somehow I have the same attitude today. I do not trust governments or governmental authorities which include the health authorities. I therefore do my own research and find my own sources. Having worked in the Danish National library for some 20+ years, I'm use to it. If I want to know something I find a book and start reading. Well today I have google. Just some background for the following.

When I start vaping, I quickly discovered a lot of helpful Youtube channels, where I could learn about the different vaping equipment. I also found this and a few other forums. But what was most important was that I also found some neutral scientist and doctors, who went into the research on the e-cigarette, and came up with neutral research, that confirmed my positive attitude towards vaping.

One off my friend's is sick and has a rare lung decease. The doctors did not want to operate him as long as he did not quit smoking. He then changed to vaping, got his operation and even he vapes daily, he is getting better and better everyday, and the doctors are very happy with his condition.

So both he and I both on our own body felt the big improvement going from smoking to vaping. In the light of our own experience, we simply had difficulty believing our health authorities or the media, when they released one warning after the other about this vaping. And in the meantime the politicians are the next brigade, to warn us and what is worst want to "protect" us from our self by regulating the vaping to death. And this makes me really angry. It has nothing to do with the politicians being worried about my health, but it has everything to do with them protecting the tobacco industry, who freely can continue killing people with there products and to protect the Pharmacy industry to continue selling there worthless tobacco quitting products like the chewing gum, inhalator’s which contain hydrochloric acid, according to there own listing of ingredients. As you might know the US FDA is soon trying to regulate the whole marked and so will the European Community, with there Tobacco Product Directive. What I think about that? It make me angry as hell.

In school we learned that Germany and later when I came to Denmark both are democratic countries. Let me tell you, that is not true. We have a manipulating corrupt politician class, that desperately is trying to control the population, where it in a democracy should be the population, that control the politicians. But you can forget that completely. The new corruption has a name Lobbying, in Denmark the Health Authorities have such a close tie to the pharma industry, that a lot of the rules and law proposals are directly written by the Pharma industry. The same can be said of the European Commission where the Tobacco and Pharma industry in secret meetings make their deals with the commission.

So of course I'm angry. In the German speaking world the vapers organise and one of the slogans is "Mut zur Wut" translated to English it's Courage to rage according to Google translate. We are adults, who have found a better and more safe alternative to smoking. According to the British Health authorities 95 percent more safe than cigarettes, so why in Gods name will our politicians forbid adult responsible citizens to vape or make it a lot more troublesome to vape. Why can the adult responsible citizen, not decide for themselves, what is good for them. Why do normal law abiding none political citizens have to go to the streets and protest against this stupidity. Democracy my ass. It is horrendous, that I have to fear that my vaping equipment will be against the law one day, and I am criminalized, for something, that is not harmful, nor course any harm to others ?

The politicians with the help of the mainstream media and fed with "scientific" proof from corrupt scientist, try to concince us that vaping is dangerous for our health in spite of the fact, that our body and neutral researcher tells us differently. Siam Diesel wrote :

I think we in the vaper community should create a "Hall of Shame" and i have the first candidate ready for you : Mr R. Paul Jensen and his colleagues at the obscure Portland State University. He is the head of that study that Siam Diesel and a lot of others refer to.

This mr. Jensen had a Test with some Evod tanks trying to find formaldehyde. The whole test series where he aplied 3.7 voltage to the tank did not found any formaldehyde, or so little that it was a lot less than in cigarettes. To please his masters he then applied 5 volt to the same Evod tank, burning the coil and wick so bad that he finally got his formaldehyde. The story was brought by the media around the world, even when a scientist like Konstantinos Farsalinos hours after the test was published, came with there objections, the harm was done. No one noticed that the "research" also showed that there was no formaldehyde, when using the Evod Tank normally, but everyone noticed the second test just forgetting that it actually had to destroy the tank before the formaldehyde would show up.

Spreading fear and confusion with misleading formaldehyde studies « The counterfactual

I think there is a reason for my mistrust in governments and authorities. During my search for thruth about the e-cigarette I have seen too many false "research" results, where the "research" was conducted in a way, where they wanted a certain result, and if this was not coming by when testing in a normal way, well then you just destroy the product or manipulate in another way. Sad to say. Well that is what i had for now. If you can use some of my comments you are welcome.

 

Bought an e-cig on a whim after smoking for 30-ish years. Instantly gave up smoking, and two hours later realised I could in-turn give up vaping pretty easily if I wanted, due to it feeling a lot less addictive.

 

Vaping is working for me after over 40 years of 30-40 cigs a day. I have noticed, however, that whilst the British NHS appears broadly in favour of vaping as a means to cut smoking, some of the tabloid press try to twist any story remotely connected with vaping, to show it as dangerous. A couple of days ago the Mirror (I think), published an article, with graphic photos, of an American who's mod exploded, breaking his neck. The fact that he was using an unsuitable battery and extreme settings was buried deep in the story. The Daily Mail today went one better, "Britain's first e-cigarette suicide." In fact the man drank a cocktail of cider and nicotine concentrate. This paper has an anti-vaping agenda, but they shot themselves in the foot since 95% of the readers comments were about how vaping got them off cigs when all else failed.

 

Hello David

I believe that you can read similar stories as the above stories in every vaping forum group. The stories of people reporting how much it helped to quit and about the improvements in health are countless.

I myself was a lighter smoker, only 10 cigs per day. I used to self-roll from halfzware. This is one of the last real quality tabocco products available in the world, after the big cigarette producers started replacing tabacco with fillers, waste and flavours in cigarettes more than 30 years ago.

I only smoked in the evenings after work was done. I did smoke bcs I liked it, the taste, the relaxation, to think and to tank new energy and creativity.

I started vaping just 2 months ago. I neither had health issues nor other problems with smoking, but I like the taste, too. If I can have a good taste with lesser poison, why not, that seems a good deal to me. I am using tabacco flavours with 3 mg nicotine content. Over daytime I do vape somethimes but only fruit flavours with no nicotine.

I have no idea about what prople think being wrong with vaping, why countries want to ban and forbid it. I am living in a country where the government has done many many things right. But this one - so I feel - is not handled with due reason. There is NO tolerance at all, as it was/is with chewing gum or other items, incl. smoking.

May be it bewilders people how someone could be putting an electronic device in his mouth. To me it is bewildering that cannabis use as an example is being "tolerated" in many countries, some in Asia are even producing large quanities, and in several countries it is under debate to be unresricted, while at the very same time vaping is getting such a harsh response in many countries, in particular in Asia.

It seems we need regulations to ensure device and liquids safaty, but we do not need to bans.

 

Hey Merangue, great article. Now that the DHSS has come out in favour of vaping, you could try submitting it to the local and regional press for publication. Further the cause, and maybe make a few bob.

**Updated**

SD made the point that the OP has disappeared. Easy job this business of writing magazine articles. Sit in your condo in Phnom Pehn, (or flat in London, for all we know), get forum members to provide the copy for free, cut, paste, edit, and you have your article, and the cheque(s) from the publishers.

**Updated**

Not sure why my last post came out as an update?