Tobacco.org

EDITORIAL: our view: Snuffing out tobacco  

But the government's determination to rein in the tobacco industry poses another problem -- the livelihood of thousands of farmers and tobacco growers.

North Carolina is a tobacco state. Last year, tobacco was the top cash crop, according to The Associated Press with $686 million in receipts.

Despite continued government intervention and the longstanding evidence about the harm of tobacco, many families have opted to continue to grow the lucrative crop. The proposed regulations could have wide-ranging impacts on our state's farmers who may need help shifting to other crops that contribute to a safer society. We support efforts to stop the use of tobacco, but we firmly believe the government and the industry must not turn their backs overnight on these farmers. To do so would further imperil the family farm and potentially erode the cultural foundation of many rural North Carolina communities.

We are highly skeptical of the FDA's ability to handle any more responsibility given its current staffing and funding and we fear the impact of these new regulations would be extremely harmful to the farmers unless they have another avenue to maintain an agricultural community. We believe the Congress should ensure it gives the executive branch all the tools and funding needed to make new regulations work fairly. And additionally, the Congress and the executive branch must protect our farmers from being victimized by the government's "good intentions." Without this two-pronged approach, any attempt to curtail tobacco use will simply go up in smoke.

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