Nationwide smoking ban at VA facilities has some veterans fuming

I tried to quit smoking & (although unlike many) I didn’t start smoking until I was in nursing school because I had grown a tolerance to caffeine (I was 32 y/o, my first degree was in Electronic Technology). At the time I was in the USAR, held 3 part-time jobs, and was like a chicken with its head cut off. Two & a half years ago, I stopped smoking and started vaping for a year. I only bought ones with no nicotine and after my year of not smoking cigarettes, it got to the point that I couldn’t find any place that carried the no nicotine refills (because they figured out that wouldn’t keep people dependent on nicotine). So, I went back to smoking, yet the cigarettes I smoke are a “premium” cog & thus are harder to find. The reason is because the cigs I smoke contain only 0.1 mg nicotine & 1 mg of tar. A single Marlboro “RED” cig has 1.5 mg of nicotine & 15 mg of tar (the stuff that stick in your lungs), this to get the same amount of nicotine & tar, I would have to smoke 15 cigarettes. The last time I was in the hospital, I was asked if I would like to quit & I agreed and they started me on the lowest dose patch. Within in a hour, I was going nuts, turns out that my body couldn’t handle the low dose patch of 4 mg of nicotine (the equivalent of 40 of the amount of nicotine in the cigs I smoked). Cutting to the chase, I was given a disability retirement and moved from Long Beach, CA back to Orlando, FL. We got an apartment that was a smoke free community, thus to have a cigarette, I have to walk a quarter + mile just to go out and have a cigarette. Due to multiple spinal cord injuries, this had a great advantage to keep me active. But in Florida, it rains a lot, which cut down the amount I smoke, plus on days when I experience spasms up & down my spine, I cannot even muster the energy to even have a cigarette & happy that since moving back here in April, I have cut down my smoking to < 7 packs last month. I have gone 1-3 days without even smoking, problem now is that when I do go out I have the urge to smoke. I am getting there, and hopefully by Xmas I will be done!!