I'm just calling it the way I see it: The FDA during the last 3 administrations has been turned into an emasculated, powerless agency. In general this has turned out to be a very bad thing for us minions eating - literally - the repercussions of this. But in the micro world of "doing something" to e-cigs, the FDA can't keep up with really important things that might actually make us safer, let alone take on a product that gives them brain farts because they can't determine, according to their own screwed up standards, if it's bad or it's good. (Or doesn't have the motivation to do so.)
In this weird status-quo our government has lapsed into, I really don't see anything happening. The FDA has tried, more than once to "do something" to e-cigs, and no matter what tack they use they have been shot down in the Courts. If "regulating it like cigarettes" would translate into "no on-line sales" the entire e-cig industry, at least the big players, would have injunctions and law suits flying all over the place. There might be a lot of little guys selling Dekang and
joyetech that may not have the $$$ to take this on. But the manufacturers that make profit off supplying the little guys - Dekang and JoyTech and others - most certainly do. The entire USA is not a tiny market to these manufacturers.
Big tobacco doesn't have exactly a shining reputation in this era. I wouldn't count on the tobacco industry having as much power as it used to in this era of
"...for the children!" And big pharma and their wondrous products? If that was working out so well we - and I do mean us - wouldn't be the big advocacy behind e-cigs. We'd all be calling our Congress critters demanding the threat to Chantix and Nicorette be stopped! Stopped I say, by those evil Chinese e-cig manufacturers. Anyone done that? Quite the opposite, if anything.
Besides, with social networking being what it is we could have a "Sit On Washington" campaign organized in about 2 minutes.