DPAC debut

The wholesale ed hardy clothing for women and men.

By Verne Strickland

I can’t believe I’m old enough to recall the times when tobacco was pronounced “bacca” by the proud Southern farmers who grew the crop.But I am that old. And more. During those years I’ve learned how to pronounce “tobacco” a lot closer to proper, and I most often spell it right. More importantly, I have had a lot of personal experience with it.I worked in North Carolina tobacco fields for many hot, stifling summers. I transplanted tobacco, topped it, suckered it, cropped it, trucked it, hung it in wood-fired curing barns, took it down, graded it, and tied it into bundles for market. And I smoked it – for about twenty years.Tobacco has been a highly profitable crop. Primarily a Southern crop. Not because our farmers here care less about the health and welfare of others. It’s because the climate and soil of the Southeast is ideally suited to growing quality tobacco with the aroma and flavor preferred by smokers the world over. Tobacco has is labor intensive, although mechanization is helping. And farmer “inputs” are much higher than in most other U.S. crops. The net income potential per acre is much higher as well. Corn can’t come close. Or soybeans, wheat or sorghum. If tobacco flourished in Oregon, Michigan and New Hampshire, farmers in those regions would not hesitate to raise it and sell it.By the time our Southern tobacco is fashioned into American blended-type cigarettes, billions of dollars are at stake at the retail counter. Tobacco’s critics – and there are many – have long sought a way to effectively discourage cigarette usage – but not too much, perhaps. The breakthrough was the “tobacco settlement”,  a conduit for billions of dollars flowing to the states from cigarette sales -- ostensibly to reduce smoking, and pay for treatment of health problems associated with tobacco use. A noble aim.  But there has been much duplicity and hypocrisy in this campaign. As the health issue gathered momentum, politicians and policymakers took their bows on the stage, but ducked behind the tobacco barn to siphon off some of the spoils. This has been quite effective. The GAO estimates that only about thirty percent of the tobacco settlement booty has been used for such programs as cancer research and anti-smoking campaigns. Reports have surfaced of tobacco settlement money being used to buy golf carts and irrigation systems for country clubs, also for college scholarships, tax breaks, jails, schools, and a salary for a dog catcher.Washington can’t get it right. Tobacco money is collected but squandered. That’s the sordid picture on the farm. In the city, astounding sums are thrown at credit institutions, and now Detroit wants a bail-out as well.The beat goes on. Makes you wonder. How’re you going to keep ‘em down on the farm, after they’ve seen AIG and GM?