Vape shop owner: I quit smoking thanks to vaping. Banning flavors hurts adults like me.

I discovered vaping in 2008 after smoking cigarettes for 30 years. It was life changing. I had wanted to quit but nothing I tried helped me — not the patch, pills, nicotine gum or the cold turkey route.

The first couple of times I tried vaping, I was skeptical it could replace or even wean me off cigarettes. But I found that it helped me accomplish something I never thought was doable — quit smoking entirely.

Back then, vapor products were few and far between and relatively unknown or hard to get for smokers looking for safer alternatives to cigarettes. I was on a mission and desperate. I devoted many hours and much energy researching vaping.

Fast-forward a few years, and I knew I wanted to make this life-saving alternative as widely accessible to as many adult smokers as possible. Smoking is the No. 1 cause of preventable death in this country, and I wanted to do my part to help end this public health travesty.

In early 2013, I began to reach out to every vapor product wholesaler I could find and built relationships and friendships with many people in the growing vapor industry. With the support of my family and friends, I eventually opened multiple vapor stores in Florida.

A community to quit smoking

We’ve built a community. Our stores are not just places for people to buy vapor products for recreational use. My stores are educational spaces for adult smokers to feel comfortable visiting and coming in to ask questions and learn how to quit a habit that could kill them, the way it kills 480,000 Americans each year and creates so many long-term health issues.

My stores literally save lives because we’re able to offer adults reliable, personalized information and a variety of alternatives, including flavored products, that really do help adults transition away from combustible cigarettes.

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Opposing view: Don’t destroy the nicotine vaping industry

I’ve become increasingly concerned about the lack of facts about flavored nicotine vapor products and their benefits as the news media and politicians malign the products that have saved me, my customers and millions of other adults from cigarette addictions. Flavors are integral to the cessation process (I used blue raspberry to help me quit). We adult former smokers need flavors, not tobacco-tasting ones that resemble the harmful combustible tobacco cigarettes we are working hard to avoid.

Of course, I am worried by recent reports of lung illnesses caused by the use of black market products and about the rising rates of youth use of vapor products. Nonetheless, I know from nearly a decade of experience that banning flavors Iike mango or strawberry will not protect our youth or public health. It will only cause adult former smokers to revert to the Big Tobacco products they have worked so hard to avoid.

Banning flavors will hurt adults

In a rush to address the real problems of underage use and illegal vapor products, people and governments have started instituting new and misguided bans, laws and regulations. Youth vaping is already illegal, and no one should be purchasing products from unregulated or illegal points of sale. I’m convinced these bans and proposals will only create a new and larger black market for illicit vapor products. Putting unnecessary restrictions on legal products means hurting our small businesses and putting many people put of work.

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Many people fail to understand that there are already strict regulatory standards in place for marketing and manufacturing vapor products. In fact, all ingredients in vapor products have been filed with the Food and Drug Administration. Legal vapor products, like the kind in my stores, are far safer and an effective and crucial tool for quitting cigarettes.

The only beneficiaries of a flavor ban are the Big Tobacco companies. They’ll have former smokers returning as avid customers. Instead of propping up an industry that harms millions of Americans, we should work to support the diverse array of vapor product companies that provide a real solution.

Our industry employs 166,000 people across the country, according to the Vapor Technology Association, and we've helped bring the rate of cigarette smoking to record lows.

I care so deeply about this issue because this concerns the health of my family, friends and customers. I didn’t open a business to make money off of nicotine-addicted teens. We’ve created a safe space for people looking to quit smoking. Flavor bans threaten this entire community of people working to improve their health after a lifetime of addiction to deadly cigarettes.

We can address the issues of youth vaping and lung illnesses without threatening the health of millions of adult former smokers or the livelihoods of the many of us in the vapor industry. Let’s work to come up with real solutions to the problems of youth access to vapor products instead of creating misguided and dangerous policies.

Nick Orlando is the owner of The Vapers Depot in Florida and an affiliate member of the Vapor Technology Association.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Vape shop owner: Flavor bans will hurt adults like me who quit smoking