Eva M. Clayton: “In discussing this amendment we really need to discuss the morality of young people smoking or the mortality of those…”

“In discussing this amendment we really need to discuss the morality of young people smoking or the mortality of those who may be chronic long smokers. In spite of the good intentions of the sponsors, we are not doing that. What we should be talking about is fairness and the appropriate remedy. Is it fair to deny vulnerable persons, deny them and be the only ones who are farmers not receiving the protection of our crop insurance? It would mean those farmers would not be able to get loans, not being able to get loans they would go out of business. I can tell my colleagues, these are not big businesses. These are small farmers. These are small farmers who usually grow 10 or less acres of tobacco. I heard someone say how profitable it is. It is profitable. In order to make that same income, we would have to do 15 times as much cotton, almost 20 times as much corn, if we could find the land that would grow the corn, grow the wheat. This is not the right way. Yes, American policy has spoken. It says we should protect our youth. We should bring that in correlation with each other. This is the wrong way to do it. It is the wrong remedy.”