| US distribution of tobacco in foreign countries is more harmful to those countries than foreign distribution of marijuana is to the US. |
| A new report issued by the World Health Organization, with financial help from Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s foundation, offers the first comprehensive analysis of tobacco use and control efforts in 179 countries. It notes that tobacco will kill more people this year than tuberculosis, AIDS and malaria combined. It warns that unless governments do more to slow the epidemic, tobacco could kill a billion people by the end of the century, the vast majority in poor and middle-income countries.
Source: "The Global Tobacco Threat" - NY Times - February 19, 2008 In the wake of declining US cigarette sales, US tobacco companies have targeted the populations of foreign countries. In some of these countries, the marijuana crops are defoliated and destroyed by US drug enforcement planes. These same countries would be justified in flying over American farms to defoliate and destroy tobacco crops. (In a practical sense, this is very unlikely to happen.) Cigarettes are responsible for over 300,000 deaths per year in America alone. The links between cigarette addiction and fatal diseases such as lung cancer and heart disease have been widely acknowledged since the mid 1960's. Because of the work of enlightened Surgeons General and various anti-smoking campaigns, cigarette smoking has declined substantially in America. (This decline is responsible for extending the lives of thousands of Americans each year.) U.S. cigarette consumption grew 55 percent between 1950 and 1986, peaking at 640 billion cigarettes in 1981, 70 percent above the 1950 level. Although per capita consumption also increased between 1950 and 1963, it has steadily declined to the lowest level since 1944. Per capita consumption reached a record 4,345 cigarettes in 1963 and then has declined since 1964, following the release of the first report of the Surgeon General linking cigarette smoking to lung cancer and other diseases, falling 53 percent between 1963 and 2000. In 1999, the U.S. consumed an estimated 435 billion cigarettes. With a farm value in 2002 of $1.7 billion, tobacco is one of the top ten U.S. cash crops. Source:U.S.D.A. Economic Research Service -- http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/Tobacco/background.htm Today, American cigarette companies are aggressively marketing cigarettes around the world in an attempt to offset lost sales in America. And they are succeeding. Cigarette sales are growing throughout the developing world. Along with cigarette addiction, these countries are importing maladies that will kill untold thousands of them each year. It is generally agreed among the scientific community that the marijuana that we import into America is not physiologically addictive. So far, no deaths have been directly attributed to marijuana in the United States. In Buesaco and hundreds of other towns across Colombia, peasant farmers have…[charged] that American-piloted crop dusters have mistakenly wiped out their legal crops and that glyphosate [a concentrated form of Roundup sprayed from airplanes] poses serious health risks to humans and farm animals. "The government claims that glyphosate doesn't harm human health or the environment. We know this is not true," said Juse Maria Moncayo, the mayor of Buesaco, Colombia. "Our children started vomiting and developed skin rashes as soon as the spraying began. Our cattle developed respiratory infections, then started dying." Source: Dallas Morning News - 8/14/2003 -- "Columbia could ban U.S. spraying" by Tod Robberson The cigarettes that we export are more dangerous than the marijuana we import. If we are justified in destroying marijuana crops in foreign countries, then the same countries are justified in destroying tobacco crops in America. |
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| Comments | Contributor | Date Submitted |
| All I can say is if foreign countries did start killing U.S. tobacco crops - MORE POWER TO THEM! I think it is ridiculous that our government demonizes marijuana but the by far more insidious tobacco is LEGAL! I wholeheartedly believe all I have read (from the medical industry!) that marijuana is not physically addictive while tobacco is as addictive or MORE addictive than cocaine or heroine. I agree, importing of tobacco is much more harmful! | Shannon Minnesota |
5/20/2005 |
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12/25/2009 |
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