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So, let me get this straight. The government pays people to produce them, then charges people to smoke them?

• throwawayjava 9y ago
  Basically, yes. But it's not quite that clear cut. Tobacco growers receive farm subsidies [1], which isn't a tobacco-specific subsidy, but also isn't a "whoops didn't mean those farms" accident [2]. Tobacco products are then (heavily) taxed. Also, it's actually that the federal government pays people to grow tobacco and the state governments tax people to consume tobacco. And the federal subsidies are much lower than the state taxes. It's still a weird situation, and subsidies probably shouldn't be paid to farms producing tobacco. But the sort of corruption that makes this nonsense possible is totally legal in America, so. [1] https://farm.ewg.org/top_recips.php?fips=00000&progcode=tobacco https://farm.ewg.org/top_recips.php?fips=00000&progcode=toba... [2] http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/301645-senate-rejects-amendment-to-end-tobacco-farm-subsidies http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/301645-senate-r...