Tobacco kills us - yet we subsidize the farmers who grow it

Let's imagine for a moment that you are selling a product thatis harmful to the user when used for its intended purpose. Also,imagine that the product is also harmful to those nearby the user.

Now, even though you are selling fewer units than in previousyears, you are enjoying even greater profits due to your raisingwholesale prices twice a year by the annual rate of 9-10 percent withassistance from American taxpayers.

Yes, the tobacco industry seems to be immune from decreasedprofits. Could one reason be the support it receives from ourgovernment? You be the judge. . . .

Tobacco - along with corn, wheat, cotton and rice - is one ofthe basic crops grown under a federal price support program in whichfarmers agree to limit their production in return for a guaranteedminimum price. The program is voluntary, accepted or rejected byvote of farmers in a given region, and is operated through regionaltobacco cooperatives. If a farmer is not able to sell his crop to aprivate buyer at auction time, he sells it to the cooperative, whichplaces it in storage until a buyer can be found.

For many years the federal program kept supply and demand inrelatively good balance. But, in the early 1980s, seriousdifficulties began to appear in the operation of the program andCongress instituted sweeping changes through two acts of legislation,one passed in 1982 and the other in 1986.

One of the purposes of the 1982 legislation was to transfer allbut the administrative costs of the tobacco program from thegovernment to the farmer. This "no-net-cost" program was to beginwith the 1982 crop year, but in 1986 Congress exempted the 1983burley crop, which was of poor quality.

Over the years, the tobacco program has resulted in overpricingAmerican tobacco in the world market by an estimated 40 to 60 cents apound. This has hampered exports abroad and led to American companies importing large amounts of tobacco fromforeign countries!

The 1986 legislation sets up procedures for disposing ofsurplus inventories from the 1976-81 crop years by offering to sellat 10 cents on the dollar to cigarette tobacco buyers (at thetaxpayers' expense!). Over the years, tobacco subsidies have costthe taxpayers billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives.

What we as taxpayers have to decide is:

Should our national policy on tobacco products continue as is?Is it appropriate and morally right for our government and thetaxpayers' money to be involved in any manner in the growing oftobacco - a product that takes the lives prematurely of 350,000Americans each year, costs businesses nationwide more than $69billion each year, causes 83 per cent of all lung cancers and is theprimary cause of many other illnesses?

Kenneth D. Dubinski, who lives in Elk Grove Village, is thefounder of PASS (People Against Secondhand Smoke).