Organic tobacco

WLockeretz@infonet.tufts.edu
Sun, 15 Oct 95 7:43:15 EDT

Several people have commented that if you criticize organic growers for
raising tobacco, this logically leads to criticizing organic production of
all sorts of other products, like beef, for example, which also (may) have
health hazards. However, I don't think we need worry about where else this
alleged "polical correctness" will lead, nor that we are on a "slippery
slope," as one respondent put it, for several reasons:

1. People don't wear cholesterol patches to be able to quit roast beef;
no wag ever bothered to say: "It's easy to give up roast beef -- I've
done it dozens of times."

2. No parents' groups have been organized in outrage over promotion of
roast beef to kids, such as through a "Joe Roast Beef" character.

3. Hospitals, schools, offices, etc., have not found it necessary to
restrict eating roast beef in order to protect the health and comfort of
those who are *not* eating it.

4. If eating roast beef really is harmful to one's health, at least you don't
see the beef industry sponsoring women-oriented sporting events or
cynically throwing around money in the black community in the hopes of
getting these groups to burden their health even more, to make up for
the decline in their main customer base.

5. No fires have been started by eating roast beef in bed.

6. After people eat roast beef, they don't throw the scraps on the sidewalk.

William Lockeretz
Tufts University