Tobacco.org

Briefs from Eubank, Lexington, Somerset, Russell Springs, Burnbaugh 

Former Miss America Venus Ramey is taking on the U.S. government over its tobacco policy.

Acting as her own lawyer and seeking $300 billion in damages, Ramey filed a federal lawsuit last Friday against the U.S. Justice Department.

Ramey, who was Miss America 1944, is now 74 and living on a farm north of Eubank. She wants to save the tobacco industry from possible extinction and get farmers back on their feet. . . Ramey, who represented the District of Columbia in the Miss America pageant, said her family has grown tobacco for 350 years and she has been a tobacco farmer for 50 years. . . The lawsuit accuses the government and President Clinton of trying ``to destroy a successful, lucrative American industry.''

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