The question is if we vapers were willing to give the government their share in taxes, would they leave us alone too?
Not only would they leave us alone, they'd be promoting the PV.
This whole stupid e-cig politics is really just based on the simple fact that Big Pharma and Big Tobacco did not invent it themselves. We know for damn sure that if Big Pharma invented it, we'd be seeing commercials about it constantly (and the commercial wouldn't even need a dozen negative side-effect warnings!). The e-cig competes directly with both real cigarettes and FDA-approved quit-smoking products. So it's really based on loss of a revenue stream, not public health.
That's the immediate picture. But there is a bigger picture, (it is tied into the above reasoning) that has the anti's all upset. That is the decades-long anti-smoking crusade which has tried to make smoking unpopular by making it an anti-social behavior. The e-cig flips that paradigm on its ... by mimicking the act of smoking. That alone is enough to the anti's to make them want to stamp it out. The whole discussion about whether nicotine is the danger, or whether the tar and carbon monoxide are the real danger, gets completely lost in this anti-smoking behavior modification crusade.