Tuesday, July 27, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

EDITORIAL: The tobacco buyout

Why should farmers be paid $12 billion to finally face some competition?

Over time, a gradual reduction in the acreage of federal tobacco "allotments" (land on which farmers are "allowed" to grow tobacco), prompted by reduced consumption and a slightly more free import market, have made the whole Depression-era scheme less lucrative for America's tobacco farmers, who have long treated their subsidies and "allotments" as assets -- to be traded, borrowed against, even handed down to their children.

So the tobacco farmers of Virginia and Carolina and Kentucky have now instructed their representatives in Congress that it would be all right for Congress to end the allotment program.

Providing the tobacco growers are paid $12 billion.

For what?

Why, it's a federal subsidy to compensate growers for losing federal protection against competition.

"You've got farmers and quota holders who have been going along with this program for 60 years," explains Keith Parrish, a North Carolina farmer and executive director of the National Tobacco Growers Association. "It's just not right to take away the quota value and leave these people stranded."

The House version would put taxpayers on the hook for that buyout. The Senate version would require the large cigarette makers to make the payments.

This is like declaring that ice cream is bad for our health, and therefore the families than run ice cream stands should be made to pay dairy farmers some "compensation" for an end to federal meddling in the dairy business -- with the goal of driving up the price of ice cream.

That's ridiculous. If tobacco protectionism is unwise, unjust, a menace to health, and unconstitutional (the welfare being promoted is hardly "general") then it should simply be ended, and a free market restored. Do we pay poor people billions in "compensation" when their welfare handouts come to an end?

We're not even talking about compensating farmers for agreeing to stop growing the stuff. This plan leaves them perfectly free to continue growing and selling tobacco -- as they should be. Under the sillier Senate version, the government would even continue to limit how much acreage could be devoted to the crop.

Two more problems remain. First, buyouts which would "end subsidies for all time" have been proposed, before. Once the checks are cashed, it's amazing how fast the government handouts return, in one form or another.

But most disturbing is the provision of this legislation that would pass regulation of tobacco over to the Food and Drug Administration.

Yes, tobacco is a drug, and an addictive one.

But the FDA traditionally classifies drugs by weighing their benefits against their risks. Will this agency now be expected to bend like a contortionist, contending tobacco is "useful and efficacious"?

Adult Americans -- while they should be fully informed of the risks -- should remain free to smoke or chew tobacco if they please. But FDA control is likely to lead to something more closely approaching tobacco prohibition.

And if you thought the national Prohibition of 1919-1933 was fun, wait till they give this one a try.