Re: Vaping
I was a heavy smoker from age 13 to 30.
I was in the 'Newport 100s 4 Life' crowd.
For real.
After a number of serious but unsuccessful quit attempts, I stopped smoking around age 30 (6 yrs into my recovery).
Then, about 4 yrs ago, I was going through a difficult time..

My support system was largely comprised of people who still smoked cigarettes, and those cigarettes looked so damn attractive.
They became harder and harder to not pick up, as smoking had long been an effective (albeit unhealthy) coping/self-soothing tool...

As a harm reduction strategy for not returning back to smoking cigarettes, I went on to purchase a vanilla flavored e-cigarette instead.
Had that product not been available, I would have bought a pack of Newport 100's that would have turned into a carton and a pack a day habit...

I have continued to use a vanilla flavored e-cigarette off and on while remaining combustible tobacco free since age 30.
The availability of this product has allowed me to practice harm reduction.
As the great vaping debate is raging, stories like mine are important...

And while safeguarding young people is an extraordinarily important endeavor with all drugs (including alcohol), we must also safeguard adults who use drugs.
It isn't just kids who like flavored products.
And it isn't just kids that we want to move/keep away from cancer sticks..

Policymakers in this era of vaping moral panic need to be cautious.
The collateral consequences of making safer nicotine delivery products harder to get will actually lead kids & adults to more dangerous nicotine delivery products.
That is, afterall, how prohibition ALWAYS works.