Tobacco Country’s Dirtiest Open Secret

melmagazine.com

16 points·thunderbong··5 comments

Why does the federal government still insure tobacco crops after the tobacco master settlement agreement? There’s no practical uses for it that aren’t hazardous to human health.

Not really relevant, but I am a former smoker. I found this honestly surprising.

Different forms of this are practiced in every ag sector. If you're bored and need a few thousand pages to leave on the back of the toilet, go hunt down the latest version of the farm bill. I've heard it is not quite as arcane as water-rights law, but it is in the same ball park.

reminds me of https://equineink.com/2021/10/13/bad-sport-horse-hitman/ where the insurance incentives were such, they created a market for insurance fraud which was very unfortunate for the horse.

The dirtiest secret is that kids pick tobacco for a lot of small farms, and absorb nicotine through their skin..

Picking the tobacco (and stacking and racking in the barn and drying and etc) wasnt the bad part; according to some of my family who did it. Bad enough; but not the worst.

The bad part was patrolling for tobacco hornworm (you may know them from tomato plants) every morning before school. I was impressed but the vehemence of the folks i talked to. afaik this stuff has made that unnecessary now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacillus_thuringiensis

I've done a few tobacco plants and yes; there's a definite "i just smoked a whole pack" buzz from handling them. real harvests appear to suck as a job, from what i have observed and been told. heavy clothing, gloves, and you still get juiced; plus you're doing all this in the hot and dry usually.

Kids that worked tobacco used to start chewing early, it was good to have a tolerance and a familiarity with the effects of overdose.

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