I have also posted this as a response to a post on UKV. This is a somewhat extended version of that same prose.

Nicotine is a strange thing. We use it because it gives us pleasure. Is that pleasure psychosomatic, not sure, perhaps. A lot of us enjoy Alcohol and Caffeine but we would say that we were addicted. I can go days weeks even without dropping a touch of the stuff. But nicotine, not sure if I could say the same. I’m a dual user so I know that the effect is not the same, but, It is more than an adequate substitute. There have been times between pay days etc… that buying a pack of fags was just financially not an option. Luckily with the use of e liquid and my PV of choice, I suffered nothing you would describe as withdrawal symptoms, so they do work in that purpose for me at least. We are all different and we all sit in a different point on the addiction scale.

Are e-cigs for non smokers only? No.

If you had already stopped smoking permanently prior to hearing about electronic cigarettes, you have no need for the device.

I see it as a mechanism for those who can’t quit of do not want or need to yet.

Are you addicted to nicotine? Am I?

It depends on your perspective of the issue. If you see you nicotine habit as an uncomfortable monkey on your back then, you have to come to a decision as to whether and how you are going to go about the process of monkey removal.

I myself don’t mind the monkey, it is still a comfort to me. Perhaps there will come a time when The monkey starts causing me pain from the sheer weight of carrying him around all the time. When he gets me breathless.

I am lucky in some respect that my monkey is a cross-breed species.

That’s enough of the monkey analogy, (who do I think I am? Richard Dawkins)

I vape and still smoke (admittedly I tend to partake in the former more frequently than the latter)

I have that option, the smoker who has not been introduced to the electronic cigarette does not know of this ingenious loophole we have of  ”Quitting without Quitting”

This is why I support Rusty’s work at Cam Vip and am an active member of ECCA