I remember Wendell Berry wrote an essay about the meaningful role tobacco harvesting played in his community (https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2012/mayjune/feature/excerpts-the-writings-wendell-berry). As Kim mentioned, Native Americans and others have been known to use it medicinally; it is the addictive chemicals and additives that Big Tobacco adds that are the greatest threat to health (which in turn produces big profits for Big Medicine).
If you haven’t yet watched “The Insider” (I referenced it in my Profile in Courage on Tess Lawrie: https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/profiles-in-courage-dr-tess-lawrie?s=w), that covers the real-life whistleblower Jeff Wigand’s revelation that Big Tobacco intentionally funded fake studies, manipulated outcomes, and concealed the data incontrovertibly demonstrating the hazards caused by their products. It is the same story of fraud, corruption, propaganda, smearing, and obfuscation we are seeing today.
Oh yes, it is a *highly* profitable, primarily due to expanding to markets in Asia and Africa along with the newly burgeoning e-cigarette industry:
https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/tobacco-market
I remember Wendell Berry wrote an essay about the meaningful role tobacco harvesting played in his community (https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2012/mayjune/feature/excerpts-the-writings-wendell-berry). As Kim mentioned, Native Americans and others have been known to use it medicinally; it is the addictive chemicals and additives that Big Tobacco adds that are the greatest threat to health (which in turn produces big profits for Big Medicine).
If you haven’t yet watched “The Insider” (I referenced it in my Profile in Courage on Tess Lawrie: https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/profiles-in-courage-dr-tess-lawrie?s=w), that covers the real-life whistleblower Jeff Wigand’s revelation that Big Tobacco intentionally funded fake studies, manipulated outcomes, and concealed the data incontrovertibly demonstrating the hazards caused by their products. It is the same story of fraud, corruption, propaganda, smearing, and obfuscation we are seeing today.