Posted on 05/14/2014 11:38:02 AM PDT by Olog-hai
An international rights group is pushing the federal government and the tobacco industry to take further steps to protect children working on U.S. tobacco farms.
A report released Wednesday by Human Rights Watch claims that children as young as 7 are sometimes working long hours in fields harvesting nicotine- and pesticide-laced tobacco leaves under sometimes hazardous conditions. Most of what the group documented is legal, but it wants cigarette makers to push for safety on farms from which they buy tobacco.
Human Rights Watch details findings from interviews with more than 140 children working on farms in North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia, where a majority of the country’s tobacco is grown.
“The U.S. has failed America’s families by not meaningfully protecting child farmworkers from dangers to their health and safety, including on tobacco farms,” said Margaret Wurth, children’s rights researcher and co-author of the report. …
(Excerpt) Read more at bigstory.ap.org ...
/johnny
Just move them to the pot farms. Problem solved. Lets see. Vilify a legal product. Push with pride an illegal (still in most places) product. Wonder what the studies will show in 50 years about chronic pot usage. That is if anybody cares to look in to it. Dude. Pass me another one.
Fact is, there are child labor laws. The other fact is that there are families in this country who need their kids to work in some capacity. When my Father was little in the 30’s, all 11 of his brothers and sisters worked to help the family.
Al Gore was the chief witness?
Gee, working in the family business in now a crime. Whodathunkit?
Family farms. BFD. Some of the finest, most hard working adults I am friends with were raised on tobacco farms.
Everyone of them started working as kids and everyone of them got tobacco-sick at one point or another.
Tobacco farmers are a dying breed. Too many sold out or are selling out.
It's a good thing that the weenies at "Human Rights Watch" never saw me tossing around heavy hay bales into my neighbor's barn when I was a kid. Between the dangerous machinery and lousy working conditions, they'd all have had heart attacks.
I lived. Made pretty good money (for a 12-year-old) too. And, it taught me that working with my head instead of my back was a whole lot easier.
And don't get me started on the dangers of doing firewood in the fall and winter. :-)
William Flax
Rampant gene-activated schizophrenia on a level never seen in any society in history. The gene-enzyme markers are there already, and the environmental triggers activate the behaviour. An uncomfortable research result. But far worse is the cancer from the smoke with more carcinogens than the worst cultivated tobacco in chronic use.
Hey, man-— far out. Gone. Aztlan re-financed.
Just call me a chronic smoker then. Me and my Marlboros. Yes, women take their chirruns and cross the street to avoid me. LOL! I remember as a kid my folks having parties in the house and you could barely see across the living room. Has anybody done a serious in depth study of baby boomers that were subjected to all that 2nd and 3rd hand smoke to look at the survival rate? You would think most baby boomers would be dead and gone based on the bleating about 2nd/3rd hand smoke. I did see some people turn away when a butt was visible in the gutter out of fear of being contaminated. :>}
Yes farm families work even the kids. We used to visit my Aunt and Uncle’s farm and as soon as we got there we would find outselves shucking corn. I kind of liked it.
Lot’s of people have smoked for years with no ill effects. Major example was Mark Twain. The genetic marker trigger effect is very important to any risk of lung issues. Another covered up research item. 2nd hand smoke— a creation of the
buttinskis. You would think the boomers would have a high rate of emphysema or lung issues corresponding to 2nd or 3rd hand— but they don’t. Now, chewing the stuff (like baseball) there’s a good bit of bad effect caused by it on mucosa of the mouth and throat.
What I was referring to on schizo was about cannabis, and a host of complete unknowns in that regard.
Oh my god...as a 10 year old, my friend asked me if I wanted to pick tobacco for his dad. I said OK and it was hard work. The cheesecloth of the shade grown tobacco caused it to be hot, but it was nice. After we did 6 hours, we jumped into the pond.
Today, half of the farm grows corn... the other half is homes. Working build character...early work is best.
So true... I remember seeing shade grown tobacco cheesecloth in the Connecticut River Valley... now mostly homes.
LOL! Yeah, I did get that about the cannabis.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.