The fast-growing “vaping” industry faces a hazy future as the U.S. government said this week that it’s taking the “milestone” step of regulating electronic cigarettes and other tobacco products as if they were traditional cigarettes.

The Food and Drug Administration finalized rules extending its oversight of the multibillion-dollar e-cigarette industry, whose products are seen as an alternative to traditional smokes but whose own ingredients and long-term health risks remain murky.

Under the new rules, which go into effect in about three months, e-cigarette sales would be prohibited to anyone under 18, either in person or online. Vending-machine sales, except in adult-only establishments, and the distribution of free samples would be banned.

Manufacturers and importers of e-cigarettes and related products launched since 2007 - which covers the vast majority of the business - also must submit their products for approval so the FDA can evaluate their “ingredients, product design and health risks,” the agency said.

But makers of e-cigarettes and the liquid that goes in them have up to two years to submit their current products for approval, and the FDA’s review is likely to take another year, during which the companies can keep selling the products.

E-cigarette products also will be required to eventually carry health warnings on labels and in advertising.

Until now, all of those products “had gone largely unregulated” said Mitch Zeller, director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products.

The new rules also apply to hookah tobacco, pipe tobacco and cigars.

The FDA’s move came one day after California Gov. Jerry Brown signed two new major anti-smoking laws in California.

One law raised the smoking age to 21 from 18. The other prohibits e-cigarette use in restaurants, theaters, schools and other public places where smoking already is banned.