Dear Glennis,
By way of the point of this email I would like to share with you some facts that have brought me to this point.
As a child I was sexually abused by my clarinet teacher for four years during lessons in my parents' bedroom. Then, at 16, I was raped in the changing room of a clothing shop in Kettering by the shop owner.
For years I locked this away in my mind, remembering nothing but an anger I felt inside at the world. Consequently I ran a chequered career path, always falling out with employers and not understanding why role models caused such conflict in my life.
I spent years being a poor husband, drinking and smoking too much and abusing substances, bent on a self-destructive path. Through all this I continued to educate myself and have a large number of high level qualifications but my poor life choices always prevented me from using them to their fullest. I quit smoking and substances back in 2005.
I adored being a teacher, I felt I was an excellent motivator and achieved notable successes but this ended at the start of 2012 when I had a breakdown. Shortly after my nose-dive into a deep depression, something I now realise was part of me all along and have been bi-polar my entire life, in January 2012 I tried to take my own life.
I have undergone talking therapies and medication programs but still drank too much. In order to help calm me down from my anxious state I looked at many things I could do to help.
After extensive research, looking at all of the papers produced on the topic of vaping, I realised how much safer it was compared to alcohol and cigarettes. I didn't choose to buy the cig-a-likes available in the high street, I went for the diy kits where you use battery tubes, rebuildable atomisers and a variety of tasty juices - I particularly like banana and custard.
I saw this as a hobby and activity I could incorporate into a healthier lifestyle and it has produced amazing results. I exercise, my diet is now a healthy vegetarian one and my mind is clearer. Vaping is enjoyable, relatively safe and helps me to stay relaxed. I entered into it knowledgeable and made informed choices as someone in possession of higher degrees would.
It puzzles me now why anyone would want to take this away from me. I feel the arguments in favour of vaping are being overlooked and maligned for political ends, not so much against Big Tobacco but in favour of Big Pharma. Big Tobacco has little to do in this market, it is small businesses designing mods (a thriving part of what's left of our manufacturing base) supported by a number of other small businesses catering for pharmaceutical grade liquids and marine grade supply materials such as stainless steel.
It strikes me that this market is operating in a highly responsible fashion and one only needs to look at the related internet forums to see the quality of dialogue and the preoccupation with vaping safely that is held by all.
Selling e-cigarette-alikes in supermarkets and corner shops does appear wrong to me but that is no reason in itself to medicalise the entire market. Nicotine is as harmful as coffee and is not a gateway to cigarettes, it is a gateway from them as the current 1.3million (and growing) UK vapers would attest.
Supporting people to make a responsible choice is the ethical, responsible and correct thing to do and I hope that you can appreciate this. I hope that you can support a more well-considered approach to the issue rather than the rush job currently being thrust through the European Parliament. This is not a party matter, this is a question of individual's health and individual choice which if allowed to continue to grow will save the country billions in cancer treatment.
If you would like copies of all of the evidence I have amassed I would be pleased to pass it on to you.
I urge you to support sensible approaches to governance on this matter and not policies which endanger health and threaten small business holders. I really hope that I can count on your support.
Please feel free to contact me for any further details you might like me to expand upon.
Kind regards,
