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• Canadian bill worries Kentucky tobacco growers 

An hour and a half after hearing testimony, a Canadian Senate panel in Ottawa last week approved an anti-smoking bill that Kentucky burley tobacco growers fear may be bad for their business.

The bill, known as "The Cracking Down on Tobacco Marketing Aimed at Youth Act," passed the Senate Social Affairs, Science and Technology Committee on a voice vote and without amendments. It now awaits final action in the Canadian Senate.

The measure is intended to ban flavored tobacco products in Canada, but burley growers are worried that the bill will end the export of American burley to Canada.

Burley is one of three kinds of tobacco mixed together with additives for blended tobacco. Some Kentucky lawmakers, led by Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-1st District, have written to American and Canadian officials that because the pending bill in the Canadian Parliament prohibits many of the additives used in blended tobacco, the measure effectively bans burley.

With 85 percent of U.S. burley exported, the implications of the Canadian action and possible similar actions by other nations are enormous, the Kentuckians warned.

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