Problem-plagued official putting farmers in a bind SPOTLIGHT / EVERY MONDAY Lucy Soto - Staff Monday  January 17

Nearly 1,000 Georgia tobacco farmers have been checking their mailboxes since the turn of the New Year. And they've been coming up empty.

The farmers are waiting on millions of dollars set aside by the nation's tobacco companies to compensate them for the recent blows to the cigarette industry. But the board created by the state to disburse these checks says mistakes in the way workers entered information into computers have set the process back.

See rest of the story at:

http://www.accessatlanta.com/partners/ajc/epaper/editions/today/local_news_6.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), January 18, 2000

Answers

good grief. so now we will compensate farmers that grew tobacco? is this to get them to stop or keep growing it? i haven't seen yet that any of this tobacco settlement has gone to 1) education programs for kids to KEEP them from using it, 2) for folks that need help getting off tobacco, 3) for healthcare programs related to helping tobacco addicts. i hope some of it gets there.

-- tt (cuddluppy@aol.com), January 18, 2000.

The AJC (Atlanta Journal Constitution) is notorious for pulling stuff off quickly the web (they charge you after a certain date to search their archives), and "today's" news is now up (so the link above is no longer live).

Several problems regarding the tobacco industry in Georgia were identified prior to rollover. I do not know if this one is y2k- related.

-- Bud Hamilton (budham@hotmail.com), January 18, 2000.

The government has been subsidizing tobacco farmers for years!

-- Cyndi Crowder (cyncrowder@aol.com), January 18, 2000.

Come on, people. the government has no business messing with the tobacco industry in the first place. Communities, families and individuals need to handle their own affairs. Everyone in the world knows that smoking is hazardous. If you want the tobacco industry to go down- don't smoke. Simple?

-- Andrew Wiggins (Kansas) (knss@mailcity.com), January 18, 2000.