CA: Bill introduced to legally equate e-cigs to cigarettes.

[pnwmom]

165. E-cigs must be regulated as tobacco products because the manufacturers won a lawsuit

that required the FDA to do so.

Otherwise, they would have had to subject their products to the same FDA oversight as other drugs -- and they didn't want that.

So don't blame the government for this -- the manufacturers forced the govt. to treat e-cigs like tobacco.

http://gothamist.com/2013/01/22/e-cigs_e-cigarettes_njoy_vaping_vap.php

But NJOY's rise to becoming the most popular e-cigarette brand in the country stemmed from a lawsuit they filed to prevent their product from strict government oversight, and they continue to reap profits in a vacuum where no regulation currently exists.

In 2010 NJOY sued the FDA to prevent electronic cigarettes from being regulated as a drug device that provided the "therapeutic benefit" of quitting smoking. Nicotine devices must undergo rigorous and costly testing before they can market themselves as products to help smokers quit. NJOY won the lawsuit, and the right to keep selling their product as a type of tobacco product. E-cigarettes were ordered to be regulated under the historic Tobacco Control Act of 2009.