ABSTRACT
Tobacco has been a controversial product since our nation's founding. In 1776, abolitionists and plantation masters battled over the slave labor needed to produce tobacco. Later, the morality of tobacco smoking became the central contested issue. In the 20th century, the conflict has been between health groups and tobacco interests. Modern tobacco farmers reap over $1 billion a year, but their $3,000 dollar an acre profits are dwarfed by $35 billion worth of cigarette sales (Baccardi, 1989; Wilson, 1989). The farmers and cigarette companies are joined in the pro-tobacco coalition by the one third of the population that uses tobacco products, the retail stores who reap profits from tobacco's sale, the advertisers who profit from its promotion, and local, state, and federal governments who net over $10 billion a year by taxing it (Wilson, 1989).
