Tobacco Farmers
A letter to the editor regarding an article on tobacco farmersLetter to the Editor
7-17-2000
Murder
The front page article on July 17 announced; “Tobacco farmers fear Florida verdict will shut them down”. I’m supposed to get all teary-eyed because the nations drug farmers might be heading for hard times? No one cried when the people that made napalm during the Viet Nam war were going to lose their jobs nor does anyone worry about the poor poppy farmer in Bolivia or the marijuana grower in Hawaii that is having a tough time selling crops due to the U.S. policy there, yet I’m supposed to feel sorry about the poor tobacco farmer? Let me remind you that people were dying in the U.S. as a result of tobacco faster than they were of bullets at any time during the Viet Nam war. Let me also remind you that more people die of tobacco and tobacco related diseases in the U.S. than the next 7 causes of death combined. So now I am supposed to be sympathetic to the tobacco farmer? Cigarettes should be a dollar apiece; not subsidized and no government money should be spent for tobacco related illnesses e.g. medicare. The tobacco companies should be paying 100% of that. The executives of the tobacco companies should be up for murder and conspiracy to commit murder; not fines. They are conspiring at this very moment on how they can hook children into smoking. Fact is, fewer than 5% of smokers start after they are 20 years old and obviously that would bankrupt the tobacco companies.