A deal at last to help farmers?

Source from:  Wilmington (NC) Star-News 05/24/2004

Tobacco farmers got hopeful news from Washington this week. They finally might get money to leave the government program that has undergirded their incomes since the 1930s. Supporters and opponents of tobacco in both houses of Congress seem to have reached a tentative agreement to combine such a buyout with tougher health regulations. That might attract enough votes to pass both proposals into law, assuming President Bush would sign it. The tradeoff – regulation in exchange for a buyout – has been around since at least last year, but tobacco's enemies and farmers' friends couldn't agree on crucial details. Those disagreements may have been eased. The Food and Drug Administration would be barred from declaring tobacco a drug (which, of course, it is). It could not ban tobacco or nicotine products, regulate farmers, or require people to get prescriptions to buy tobacco. Farmers and those with the right to grow tobacco would be given cash to help them make the difficult transition from dependence on a government-supported crop to other ways of earning a living. Not everybody likes the deal. But it has the support of many tobacco-state legislators, health advocates, Sen. Edward Kennedy and the world's largest tobacco company. The question is whether it would have the support of the man who could kill it: the president. Last week he said he opposed paying farmers to leave the tobacco program. But, with luck, Mr. Bush will reverse himself on that, as he has reversed himself on other things. That would be a flip-flop most North Carolinians would applaud. Enditem