Yeah, sounds like I had about the same experience as you: before successfully quitting via vaping, I had been trying basically every other method including prescription medications for 10 of the 18 years that I smoked. Nothing worked until vaping.

I'm guessing vaping flavor ate mostly illegal because governments weren't maming enough money out of it.

More a case of Big Tobago still having a lot of politicak influence (read: give out a lot of bribes to politicians) AND normally benevolent organizations such as the main anti-cancer foundation here in Denmark rely on sales of traditional cessation products for significant portions of their funding.

The latter is even more fucked up than the former IMO: organizations whose sole purpose is minimizing and researching cures for cancer were the main opponents to the best tool to eliminate the most common cause of cancer.

They indirectly CAUSED cancer because otherwise they'd have less money to do their great work of helping PREVENT and treat cancer.

If only they and vape makers had agreed to the same profit sharing deal as the traditional cessation product makers, vaping would probably be fully legal for adults with no unreasonable restrictions AND more effectively kept away from kids like the traditional ones are. Might even be the most used method, since it's the most effective one.