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J. Paul Leigh
Rodolfo A. Gonzalez San Jose (Calif) State University

JAMA. 1987;258(4):471.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

It is often claimed that government policy toward tobacco is contradictory, because it discourages consumption through excise taxes and restrictions on advertising while at the same time providing financial assistance to tobacco growers.¹ Yet, the policy makes sense from a public health perspective because the program to assist growers is in harmony with the goal of reducing the use of tobacco. If Congress were to cut federal funds to tobacco farmers, as the Coalition on Smoking OR Health recently suggested (Lexington Herald-Leader, Jan 15, 1987, p A9), more people would ultimately die of smoking-related illnesses.

The Department of Agriculture guarantees tobacco growers will not have to sell below a certain price. While this price-support program involves some government purchases, it works primarily through government control of output. Each grower has a quota on the amount that can be sold through government-approved warehouses, and all sales must . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Footnotes
Edited by Drummond Rennie, MD, Senior Contributing Editor; Sharon Iverson, Assistant Editor.

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