Current mood: grateful 
I had the distinct pleasure and privilege to drive Winona LaDuke to the airport last night. She was tired and low-key, but we enjoyed discussing the local culture and landscape. She kept pointing out tobacco barns with interest, and I addressed some of the issues related to Kentucky's traditionally tobacco-based agriculture, emerging agricultural trends supported by tobacco-settlement money, and the most recent push in Madison County to ban smoking in all public spaces (including privately-owned businesses).
Obviously, tobacco production has been a mixed blessing for Kentucky. It's really hard with relatively little economic payback for individual farmers, but it's been the state's number one cash-crop for a long time (if you don't count its nefarious equivalent or horses, both of which are troublesome "agricultural" issues). But this particular monoculture has long been a family tradition in many communities. Because it's backbreaking and unrewarding work, fewer and fewer native Kentuckians want to do it, so the influx of Hispanic migrant workers has changed both the cultural and agricultural landscape of tobacco farming.
Kentucky also has the highest per capita rate of smokers of any state in the nation. As a smoker, I find this both amusing and disturbing because our narrowly defined agricultural economy has basically enabled what could be viewed as a health epidemic. My personal habit of smoking is not directly related to tobacco farming per se, but I grew up with a smoker and my grandparents leased their tobacco base to other farmers. So it's always been a fixture in my life. My mother also blessed me with an awareness that tobacco is a traditional Native American plant used as a sacred herb for ritual and relationships. While my recent resumption of the smoking habit was stress-related, I am a keen observer of my habit, try to use it in conscious moderation, and view it as an important ritual in my life.
So is tobacco a blessing or a curse for Kentucky? I see so much elitism in the dispersement of tobacco settlement money for projects that will impact so few of the truly rural family farmers. For example, how many people in Eastern Kentucky or other rural communities will actually benefit from vineyards as alternative agriculture? Both the producing and consuming beneficiaries of this trend are predominantly affluent people. I love what "Acres of Land" is doing with their wine and local food production and restaurant, but I'm privileged enough to enjoy the fruits of their privileged labor.
It's also frustrating for me to see tobacco demonized socially when it's roots are so sacred. The fact that the Madison County Board of Health has taken it upon themselves to mandate a smoking ban within 25 feet of any entrance to a public building seems like fascism to me. I don't mind if a business owner wants to create a non-smoking establishment, and I will gladly oblige this restriction. But I think it should be likewise the prerogative of a business-owner to allow smoking if they choose.
During a recent smoke break at work, I was expounding upon the actual health benefits of smoking. First of all, we take the breaks we're given. So few people actually take their legally-sanctioned work breaks, and smoking seems to legitimate it to a certain degree. Ironically, we also get a lot more fresh air and exercise than our non-smoking colleagues during the work day. And perhaps most rewarding for me personally is the ritual that we share and the resulting morale boost we receive from this simple interaction.
Ultimately, tobacco is a topic that is discussed widely on the public front, but this discourse is primarily limited to defining it as a health risk for individuals and an economic liability for the Commonwealth. There is a much more comprehensive and creative conversation to be had, and I was fortunate to share some of my multivalent thoughts with Winona LaDuke.
Our discussion was much more abbreviated than what I've articulated here; however, as a result of our discussion, she pulled out a pouch of American Spirit tobacco and said, "I'm a tobacco user, too; I just don't smoke it." And she took out small handful, cupped it in her palm, and whispered a blessing over it. Then, she rolled down the window and threw the shreds of tobacco into the wind, smiled, and said, "There."
Aho...
[Backposted from MySpace 3/16/07]
