Document ID: FDA-2014-N-0189-5680
Agency: fda
Document Type: Supporting & Related Material
Title: 
Posted Date: 2014-06-17T04:00Z

Comment Info: =================

General Comment:Dear Mr. Zeller:

Please don't dismiss this as a “form letter,” though this issue was brought to my attention by CASAA.  Vaping has literally saved my life and that of my wife by allowing us an alternative to deadly tobacco smoke.  After smoking for over twenty-three years and after failing to quit at least three times after my wife and I married, two weeks after I purchased my first e-cig I was smoke-free.  It's been roughly three years now and I have not touched tobacco since.

For those who question the health benefits of “vaping,” as it is now called, all I can say is that I don't wheeze after that last cigarette before bed like I used to.  I'm breathing better.  I'm actually taking in MUCH less nicotine even though I still use liquids with nicotine in them.  My cravings have subsided in a way I cannot explain.  

Between you and me, there must be some other addicting ingredient in tobacco because even when I was using higher nicotine e-liquids I noticed I didn't “need” that nicotine hit every two-and-a-half hours like when I smoked.  I have no explanation for this, but I can go hours and hours without even thinking about vaping.  At this point I think the use of e-cigs is mostly satisfying that hand-to-mouth part of my former smoking addiction combined with the act of inhaling and exhaling the vapor.  Thankfully it doesn't stink like tobacco smoke, which I can't even stand to be around anymore.  

For some reason rabid anti-smokers keep sending us vapers out to the smoking section where we have to be subjected to our former addiction over and over.  This can be especially trying for new vapers who may still feel the allure of tobacco for a week or so until their sense of smell begins to improve.  I've been vaping for a long time now, but I'm in Ohio, and its' cold here in winter, so my biggest issue is the weather.  My college now makes me go out in the snow and stand with the smokers when I just want a puff or two on my e-cig.  We used to be able to use them in class and it never bothered anyone, but those days are over.  A lot of vapers originally switched to e-cigs just for the convenience of being able to use them inside and discovered later that they were able to free themselves from tobacco completely. Now that benefit has been taken away and new vapers will have to go outside in the snow and be tempted several times a day to just have a cigarette instead.    

Another benefit people don't generally talk about...  Vaping makes us safer drivers than smokers.  No more knee-driving to light a cigarette, no more pulling over to retrieve a cigarette that blew under the seat, and no “cherries” falling into our laps from a poorly-packed cigarette and an unfortunate gust of wind.  I just thought I'd throw that in there because I don't think it gets mentioned enough.

Vaping has changed my life as well as a host of friends and most importantly, to me, my wife.  We are all enjoying the benefits of vaping and feeling healthier for it while anti-tobacco zealots badmouth the technology that saved our lives.  Technology that they do not even understand, despite its simplicity.  They say flavors are designed to “lure children” into vaping.  The truth is that those flavors allowed me to avoid the temptation of tobacco when I was still hooked on it.  I do not use tobacco flavors, though some people do, because I am trying to further distance myself from my old vice.  Some people find that tobacco flavors helped them make the transition... so it just goes to show that we are all different.  I never found a tobacco flavor that I thought tasted anything like a cigarette.  As one manufacturer told me, “It is difficult to make harmless vapor taste like toxic smoke.”  He has a point.  You can argue about whether it is “harmless” all you want, but in any case it is clearly LESS harmful than inhaling the smoke from burning leaves wrapped in paper.

Now on the the letter CASAA urged us to send asking for an extension on the seventy-five day comment period.  I just wanted to state my case for vaping first and let you know that this is not a mindless click-and-paste campaign on their part.  We vapers all have  had our own individual benefits from vaping, but I think I have shared the most common ones here.  Vaping is not a gateway to smoking at all and I have never heard of a single person trying e-cigs and feeling any temptation to switch to cigarettes.  One man in Seattle said that would be like going from eating a nice piece of chocolate cake to instead licking dirt.  It doesn't happen.

Thank you for your time and I pray I have been informative and conveyed my passion for the products that saved my family from an early death.

Please extend the 75-day deadline for comments and also reconsider these regulations.

                                            Yours Truly,
                                                                 Michael Niedermayer