but the ban was largly based on the fact that SE and FDA were in court.
I don't think Gordon and Vitale put this bill into motion just because two e-cig companies were in court. Probably it was based on 2 principal things: loss of NJ cig-tax revenue, and pressure from anti's to ban
anything that looks like smoking. (I'll bet the 2 state senators didn't even catch on to point #1, they're probably that dumb... probably just public pressure alone).
It didn't take a lot of "lawyering-up" for NJ lawmakers to simply alter wording in the bill at the last moment. They didn't even bother to include e-cigs in a separate amendment, with all kinds of scientific or legal justification for it. They just panicked at the last moment and simply added the phrase "electronic cigarettes" to the list of banned tobacco-product items. Based on that, the
whole bill could conceivably get tossed out in its entirety.
Even so, none of this had anything to do with the state of e-cigs being legal or illegal, or being a tobacco-based or pharmacy-based product. They weren't illegal then, and they certainly aren't illegal now. Any state can create a law to ban certain things from being used in public spaces, even if that law makes no sense. (i.e. there's the nonsense going on with the VA Dept of Health trying to interpret state law to include e-cigs. At least there, the fight is not as tough because the state law doesn't even mention e-cigs.)
Yes, it's going to take another lawsuit like the ones SE and NJOY crafted to put the nails into the NJ law's coffin. But do remember that NJ and VA positions are based on banning the e-cig in public spaces, not banning them altogether (i.e. made illegal).