Someone suggested that if medical authorization became law in the EU that the big players might park ecigs all together knowing that no one else could afford to get into the market. Why sell a product in opposition to your own product?
Medicalisation won't fly in Europe, every court everywhere has overturned it. On the other hand there will be huge pressure to make ecigs a tobacco product, and in the EU that will be very bad news; at least a 75% restriction on ecigs and maybe worse. No flavours = no e-liquid, more or less. Not an insurmountable problem as the black market will take over.
Where Rolly and I part company is timescale, he thinks 20 to 40 years I think less than 10. Ecigs are closer to phone or Pc's in terms of tech. We have seen mobile phones effectively replace the old landline and tablets (and coincidentally the mobile phone) replace the big box pc all within 10 years.
Yes, this is the main variable: how long before 25% of smokers have switched, then 50% etc. It hinges on the regulatory climate because a black market product won't advance anything like as fast as a free market one. The likelihood is that ecigs will be somewhere in the middle, depending on the location. We can't expect the current free market in the US and UK to continue much longer: the financial pressures to restrict ecigs are enormous.