Thursday, November 10, 2011

Prompt 11 Response - David

What I know:
Here is the information that I have so far:
a brief description of E-cigarettes. Even though E-cigarettes have many beneficial features to the society, I found online that the government is trying to ban the product. The reason for the government to ban the product is that a study by FDA discovered that there was toxic chemical in some E-cigarette companies' products. However, another article shows that there was no toxic chemical found in Green Smoker company's E-cigarettes. Furthermore, an article mentions that the government might be afraid that they would lose a great amount of tax revenue from tobacco if E-cigarettes take over the market.

What I want to know:
I want to find out what the government's additional concerns. Also, I want to find out the tax revenue the government gain from selling tobacco and E-cigarettes. What I would do is to look up online and go to tobacco and E-cigarette stores to find out the tax on the products. I will need to do a calculation of how much the government gain from selling both products and how much consumers spend in buying both products. I will also need to look up the environmental cost of producing both products.

Questions I have or problems I am encountering:
I sent an email to FDA's directors to ask if there is any other concerns about selling E-cigarettes. However, the feedback they sent back was still skeptical. What I might do is to analyze what they send back to me and explain why I think is skeptical. And I am going to get into the topic of economic and environmental costs of both products and see which one has more benefits to the society.

3 comments:

  1. I think what you have found out and what you want to find out is great! I would also like to know what the government gain from selling cigarettes versus selling E-cigarettes. i mean, if they sold both, wouldn't they be making more money? People will always get addicted to drugs, so it's not like the whole world would stop smoking. In making an argument like that you would also have to find out what, besides the tobacco, gets people addicted to the cigarette-maybe the taste?

    Anyway, I think you are doing a great job

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  2. How is the revenue made from tobacco different than the revenue that is made from e-cigarettes? Like couldn't the government potentially tax both (or sell both just like kiki said).

    Also, I am a little bit confused about what you are looking for. Are you trying to figure out why government wants to ban the e-cigarettes or what government can gain by not banning it?

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  3. For my paper, I found that the government is trying to ban E-cigarettes because it fears that E-cigarettes might take over tobacco industry in the future, which would result in a great loss of tax revenue that is gained from selling tobacco. So I found why the government want to ban the E-cigarettes and then say why the government should not ban them. :)

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