The Farmer and the Cash Crop

The piece on Carolina tobacco farmers is an astonishing bit of muddled thinking. Can we spare the same kind and sympathetic thoughts for the honest and hard working coca growers in Colombia or the poppy growers in Thailand? How about the conscientious and dedicated employees who make the Medellin drug cartel a success? The products they grow and distribute do far less damage than tobacco.

Even the Carolina farmers should be capable of understanding that they are causing misery and death to millions of fellow human beings and are the cause of a large part of the runaway health-care costs. We are responsible for our actions. The legality of tobacco is totally irrelevant. Nigel Pridmore Brown, Ojai, Calif.

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