Let me try to carry that through and get more specific, in a personally meaningful way, on some of what I think the consequences would be of part of what Bill Godshall and Westcoast2 have described, as I believe I understand the matter:
Under the position adopted by some of the most politically potent anti-tobacco groups, if e-cigs (and any other potential alternatives) were to be permitted at all, they would be subject to an onerous pre-market approval process (and this by the way is something not routinely applied to most things we consume in the absence of particular reason to do so outside of the particular category of pharmaceutical treatments and medical devices) which would almost certainly prevent any practical possibility of them ever being available, regardless of what any actual benefits or risks might be.
Further, in the unlikely event they actually somehow were successfully put through a pre-market approval process, either under the proposed H.R. 1256 FDA legislation (as currently written) or through the extremely elaborate expensive "new drug application" pre-market pharmaceutical process, the resulting product would be designed to be nearly useless to almost everyone here. As strictly a "smoking cessation" nicotine replacement aid it would be dosage regulated to a "non-addictive" level which could be no more effective than the gum or lozenges, would be intentionally unsatisfying and undesireable for regular continued use, and prescribed for temporary short-term use only.
In other words, designed and required to be worthless and unappealing to those seeking a continuing alternative to regular smoking. A product "studied" and approved in this manner for this purpose must be: Something you do not like; and something which cannot provide ongoing satisfaction to you. By design and requirement of treatment protocol.
And that is only if it miraculously got through a pre-market review, which is exceptional to require for most things we consume for the excellent reason that most of what we use could never have existed if such a thing was a-priori assumed to be necessary, and the enormous necessary regulatory apparatus would exceed the productive capacity of this or any nation. It is not normally how we do things for most consumable products (outside of the specific category of drugs and devices for treatment of illness) and never could be.
I do not know what all components of all possible potential risks of this product might be (along with most things I and everyone else uses every day) and I think it is sensible and desirable to advocate study of that, but to do so through the mechanism of either a requirement for an FDA "new drug approval" process or a process as currently envisioned by HR1256 is nothing but a backdoor permanent ban, solely because of a superficial resemblance to the very thing it is replacing, for the irrational emotional and public relations satisfaction of some health lobby groups which are unhinged from reasonable consideration of actual public policy health consequences.
What we are dealing with is a reincarnation of the WCTU (Women's Christian Temperance Union) of 1920, minus the "W" and the "C."
EDIT to add:
Mohave said:
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