Tanks, mods, cartomizers, and everything that we currently enjoy will be illegal. The market for these products will drop and the manufacturers will either disappear, or simply produce only the proprietary crap that big tobacco sends their way.
I don't see the gear being made illegal - to do that, they would have to make anything you can use with tobacco illegal too, and that covers not only legit things like hookahs and pipes, but also the things people use with the stuff we don't talk about here - they are allowed to sell their smoking devices if it's advertised for tobacco - banning our gear would have to ban theirs, and that's not happening, with their substances starting to gain ground for being legal - they get away with it because of intent, and gear sellers for vapor products can simply advertise their gear to be used with essential oils and flavors, no nicotine.
That's why they're going after the liquids.
I think it's too late to ban them outright (or, I hope so) - sure, control freaks and idiots will ban them in offices and such, but public awareness is growing, and there's a groundswell of people switching to them. Look at how many new people end up here every day - and we're just a fraction of the vaping community. Two of the workers at the B&Ms I frequent had never heard of this place, but they said they have walk ins every day curious about e-cigs and switching. (A LOT of smokers out there hide their habits). If you start poking around social media, there's a LOT of discussion and support for vaping, and a lot of support.
I don't know for sure what's going to happen, and I won't predict it, but I don't see our gear being made illegal. There's no legal grounds for it, and banning the gear would require a far-reaching ban on other products as well - the only way they could try to ban them is intent, and they'll have to make nicotine illegal first, and Big Tobacco won't allow that. The research will come. The numbers will grow of people using them.
We do have facets to this that are fully in our favor. Big Tobacco will not allow juice to banned, because they want to sell their own - they cannot ban a substance and allow Big Tobacco to make and sell it. The only thing they can do is try to get legislation put through to hamper efforts for small operators, but I think more will survive than you think. Worst case in my mind is nicotine itself will get taxes on it, or they'll try to restrict shipping it, or tax and fee the heck out of juice makers, and play games with nicotine suppliers and who they sell to, and how it's transported. Like requiring ridiculous HAZMAT precautions and licenses for handling pure nicotine.
, repeat.
