World Vape Day – May 30th
Dimitris Agrafiotis (VapinGreek) and Phil Busardo announced in a live stream today the intention to proclaim May 30th as World Vape Day. For many years, May 30th has been recognized as National Vape Day in several countries (first Spain, then joined by many Latin American countries). This year, THR organzations across the world are joining together to proclaim May 30th as World Vape Day.
World Vape Day is a celebration of our choice to make the switch to a healthier, smoke-free lifestyle.
In celebrating our choice, we seek to raise awareness about the significant health, social, and economic benefits of e-cigarettes/vapor products for people who smoke.
First celebrated in 2012, World Vape Day has been held on various days and with varying levels of community engagement. This year, World Vape Day has finally found a permanent home on our calendars: May 30th.
World Vape Day falls on the day before the WHO’s World No Tobacco Day (May 31). We all recognize the enormous health costs (measured in lives lost prematurely and serious disease and illness) caused by smoking. However, World No Tobacco Day has increasingly focused not on smoking–the most dangerous form of nicotine consumption–but, rather, on demonising low-risk alternatives to smoking. WHO embraces harm reduction in a wide variety of arenas, but refuses to acknowledge the concept of harm reduction in connection with tobacco (THR) in spite of the fact that the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control specifically defines “tobacco control” so as to include harm reduction strategies.
Check out Phil and Dimitris discussing World Vape Day.
HOW TO PARTICIPATE
We are encouraging vapers and supporters of THR worldwide to join us on social media to celebrate World Vape Day and our right to use smoke-free alternatives. Now is the time to share how vaping saves lives and to explain why vaping is such an incredibly empowering alternative to the “quit or die” tobacco control mentality. May 30 is our day, and our voice will not be silenced!
One major goal of World Vape Day is to make our hashtag, #WorldVapeDay, a trending topic on Twitter worldwide. To achieve this we are asking you to participate by using and retweeting this hashtag.
There are loads of advocacy organizations involved in this effort, you can check out a list on the WorldVapeDay.org website.
Here’s my Vaping Story
Hello, my name is Chris and I am an EX-SMOKER!
That’s right, after 27 years of smoking and I am done! I have tried to quit dozens of times. I have tried the patch, I have tried gum, dipping, Wellbutrin, and well… nothing has worked until e-cigarettes.
In 2009, I was attending CES in Las Vegas. I was there covering the mobile tech industry, but I ended up talking with a vendor that was showing an ecig that looked like a real cigarette. He handed me a sample and I took a puff and was like, “woah… that’s bad!” I proceeded to tell this guy that I smoked menthol and he gave me a menthol version. It was bad too, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him a 2nd time though. Since I was press, he handed me some additional samples to take back with me. I never used them. The experience (taste and feel) was so awful that I swore I’d never give them another chance. I don’t even remember the name of that company. It was cool how it did look like a real cig and even had an led in the end to look like a real cherry. That same week, I actually picked up a couple of other e-cigs at CES, but none of them tasted good enough to use.
Fast forward to a couple of years ago. A friend of mine in Memphis was telling me how he quit smoking using e-cigs. I wasn’t interested. He ended getting so excited about e-cigs that he started selling products at a flea market. Eventually he opened one of the best brick and mortar shops in Memphis, Zooks Vapor. I still wasn’t ready to try them.
In January 2014, I saw a couple of contractors that work in my buildings with some fancy crack pipe looking e-cigs. They told me how awesome they were, but I wasn’t interested. One of their co-workers and I went outside to smoke our REAL CIGS and they followed us out and enjoyed their big old e-cigs!
3 months after that, April 13th, 2014, I ran into the same 3 contractors. All 3 of them were using e-cigs now. Craig, the one that was smoking real cigs with me 3 months earlier had also converted to e-cigs shortly after I saw them last. I’ve known him for years and I said to myself, “If he can quit, so can I”. On that day, I decided I wanted to give them a go.
The 1st thing I did was to call my friend at Zooks Vapor. He told me some things to look for and some to look out for. I was going to order a kit from him but found that there was a local store where I live that had just opened 3-4 months earlier. The store is Ikonic Vapor in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I decided to check them out in hopes of finding what I need without having to wait a couple of days for a shipment. I headed in and the owner recommended the same device for me that my friend Todd had suggested. I purchased the MVP 2.0 and a Kanger Unitank and a couple of ejuice bottles and headed home to try it out.
I haven’t craved a real cigarette since that day.
