“(B) ADDITIONAL SPECIAL RULE.—Beginning 2 years after the date of enactment of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, a tobacco product manufacturer shall not use tobacco, including foreign grown tobacco, that contains a pesticide chemical residue that is at a level greater than is specified by any tolerance applicable under Federal law to domestically grown tobacco.“
Presumably if the tolerance was zero, like with totally banned DDT and many of the other pesticides you see in the data below, then the law would apply. Zero tolerance, right? No US manufacturer can use foreign-grown tobacco contaminated with DDT, and many of the other pesticide residues you see here like Carbendazim – totally banned in the EU. So what’s this data and why has FDA allowed this illegal and dangerous exposure to go on for years without a single move to intervene? I know for a fact that they know exactly what is happening, and I’ll leave it to you to decide why the FDA, CDC, EPA, FTC and every other government agency refuses to regulate the Tobacco Cartel’s products.
Who’s smoking those Swisher Sweets, and why do you suppose the diabetes, obesity and hypertension in those communities are so extreme?
Search “exposure” to any of the pesticides in that table along with keywords diabetes, obesity or hypertension and you’ll find out. And here’s one clue as to where that DDT is going and what it’s doing to smokers.
“Correlates of organochlorine pesticide plasma concentrations among reproductive-aged black women“
“… prospective cohort study of Black women aged 23–35 years from the Detroit, Michigan metropolitan area (enrolled 2010–2012), examined correlates of plasma concentrations of the following OCPs: dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (p,pʹ-DDE), hexachlorobenzene (HCB), oxychlordane, and trans-nonachlor.”
“Current smoking was associated with 10–19% higher plasma concentrations of all four OCPs, and was highest for current smokers of ≥10 cigarettes/day (% differences ranged from 22 to 29%).”
This group of young Black women smokers is exactly the target market for the Swisher Sweets you see in the data above.
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In case this situation has your attention you may be interested in looking into it further. Here are some of my recent posts linking the data to published research on the results of chronic exposure to these pesticides.
This post offers hard evidence and historic documentation of the conspiratorial role of Federal agencies in concealing the health threat to smokers created by unregulated pesticide exposure
This post offers a look at the historical origins of today’s breast cancer, diabetes and obesity epidemics in the trans-generational impact of DDT and Organochlorine pesticide contaminants in cigarettes 1950-1972, and the current state of DDT in tobacco products in 2021
This post links new hard data on pesticide contaminants in cigarettes with the elevated health risks this creates for Diabetic smokers, and the simple strategy that individual smokers can use to eliminate the threat.
A radical “quit smoking” plan that will probably offend a lot of non-smokers but that could help a lot of Diabetic smokers quit hurting themselves without having to quit.
This post links hard data on DDT in Swisher Sweets brand of little cigars, smoked by millions of young women, with peer-reviewed published research on pre-natal genetic damage to the baby
This post links hard data on hidden fungicides in tobacco brands popular in marginalized communities with peer-reviewed published research that demonstrates that exposure to these same fungicides is strongly associated with testicular cancer
Any exposure to several of the pesticides shown to contaminate tobacco products are proven to have greater impact on babies with Latinx, African American, American Indian and Pacific Island genetics.
Could the unexplained link between smoking and suicide be explained by the known link between pesticide exposure and suicide, once you become aware of the concealed pesticide contamination in cigarettes?
There’s nothing spontaneous if a young smoker loses her baby because the insecticides and fungicides in her cigarettes have interrupted fetal development creating ‘non-viable offspring’ doing to her what they are designed to do to bugs.
When a pregnant woman is exposed to DDT during a critical time window in her female baby’s development that female baby will have 4X greater risk of developing breast cancer if she is Black or Brown-skinned.
Once you know about the hidden pesticides communities can use existing toxic substances laws to ban the most dangerous brands and force compliance by the rest.
This post is going to be short because the information is simply what it is.
The Nazi companies who experimented on human beings to develop nerve gasses in WWII concentration camps are the same companies drenching tobacco crops worldwide in 2021 with concealed nerve poisons and reproductive toxins while blocking any government regulation, oversight or research of any kind on the health impact of inhaling these pesticides by smoking tobacco products.
These Nazi enterprises have not only not gone away, their programs and agendas are proceeding without interruption. One of them is the largest pesticide manufacturer in the world, Bayer’s “Crop Science” megalith.
“This article explores the toxicological and physiological research into the mechanisms of action of these novel nerve agents, and the emergence of military research objectives in neurophysiological and neurotoxicological research. Recently declassified Allied military intelligence files document secret nerve agent research, leading to intensified research on anticholinesterase agents in the peripheral and the central nervous system.”
Anticholinesterase agents – which includes the Organophosphorous and Carbamate pesticides. Nerve poisons. As found contaminating almost every cigarette and tobacco product brand in the US and the rest of the world. Not DDT – it acts differently on living beings. These nerve poisons were developed to finish the job that agents like DDT only began, once insects got tougher and even DDT didn’t do the whole job. From the “Green Revolution” through “Better Living Through Chemistry” all in a straight line from Nazi Germany’s emperiments on human beings. You can get an idea of what the Tobacco industry would up doing with all that Nazi ‘research’ by looking at a few bits of the surviving evidence from industry publications before the mid-1970s ‘cleansing’ of the worlds publications on the topic of pesticides and tobacco products. Some of this fascinating early Cartel research on DDT in cigarettes can be found here and here and here and here andhere.
Here is a German pesticide company executive bragging about how Phosphine, their updated version of Zyklon B performs in American tobacco warehouses today, with the full consent and support of USDA, EPA and FDA:
“Adhering to the dosages, concentrations, and exposure times recommended in the relevant CORESTA Guide No. 2 will ensure that all four life cycles of an insect (that is, egg, larvae, pupae, and adult) are reliably exterminated. Almost needless to say that rodents also perish during treatment.”
Insects and, needless to say, mammals too. And reliably exterminated as well. What an ideal gas!
So here’s an example of that Anticholinesterase “research” done by Bayer that has made them the most profitable pesticide manufacturer in the world. I found these cold bureaucratic directions in correspondence between Bayer and the Auschwitz camp commanders, bargaining over the price to be paid for delivering human beings for experimentation to produce the anticholinesterase gasses that would become the foundation of Bayer’s pesticide fortunes. Bayer is the biggest producer of pesticides in the world, by far. Guess how they got so big? They had a huge head start, helped along by the US military. This was after the US military knew about things like this:
From Bayer: “We confirm your response, but consider the price of 200 RM per woman to be too high. We propose to pay no more than 170 RM per woman. If that is acceptable to you, the women will be placed in our possession. We need 150 women.”
Apparently those negotiations went well, because this was sent from the same Bayer office to Auschwitz a few weeks later:
From Bayer: “The transport of 150 women arrived in good condition. However, we were unable to obtain conclusive results because they died during the experiments. We would kindly request that you send us another group of women to the same number and at the same price.“
quotes from: Auschwitz: A New History by Laurence Rees (in)
To round out this post, while an unknown proportion of the world’s 7 million smokers who die from smoking each year – not from tobacco – are directly attributable to Nazi chemical science applied to cigarettes. All the monstrous chemical companies that have grown rich and fat off those deaths are doing just fine. Then of course there are all those highly profitable Chinese and Indian companies so it isn’t just the Nazis benefitting from the fruits of WWII human experimentation. Was that the end of human experimentation? Let’s ask a few prisoners in China and India.
Two million+ young Black, Brown and Native American women and their unborn female children are at extreme risk of breast cancer, a risk that reaches across generations even to granddaughters.This atrocity is totally hidden and completely ignored by government regulators, and its deadly crippling impact on marginalized people and communities of color is much, much greater than on the privileged classes and races.
Here’s the situation. Young Black, Brown and Native American girls and women who smoke the little cigar brand Swisher Sweets are radically increasing their risk for breast cancer, and their unborn daughter’s risk as well. This is because we know for a fact the women and girls who smoke Swishers are being exposed to @700X the highest concentration of DDT found in any other US consumer product. We know this because I commissioned testing of a small group of major brands in 2018 and little cigars/Swisher Sweets came back with the most extreme levels of contamination (see data below).
The DDT you see in the table below, all 0.816 mg/kg of it, is fresh, potent, and highly reactive, not just trace soil or water residuals from 50 years ago. It was sprayed directly, heavily and very recentlyon the tobacco used to make Swisher Sweets. There is a total worldwide ban on the use of DDT on crops, by the way. That’s another story, which I document in my book “Smoke No Evil“.
So, here’s why that DDT in Swisher Sweets makes the fact that they are actively marketed to Black, Brown and Native American youth a mega-RICO criminal activity. Because Black, Brown and Native American people are genetically more vulnerable to DDT and neurochemicals and endocrine-disruptors than people with Northern European and Asian genetics, the resulting damage from their deliberate addiction to these fruity little cigars is much more profound. I believe that the heavy marketing of these contaminated tobacco products to marginalized young people can be called genocidal, but at a minimum it is criminal. So, here is the DDT, fungicide and insecticide exposure that smokers of Swisher Sweets are experiencing.
Google any of these neurochemicals and EDCs and see what you find.
Let me start with some amazing and well-crafted information on DDT and Breast Cancer from the Breast Cancer Prevention Partners Website that NAILS exactly why young girls and women who smoke Swisher Sweets are increasing their risk of breast cancer and the lifelong threat to their children.
“Who is most vulnerable to the health effects of DDT and DDE?“
“DDT exposures seem to have the most profound consequences when they occur during critical periods of breast development, including prenatal development, childhood, puberty and pregnancy.[25],[26]“
“DDT and DDE cross the placenta, and prenatal exposure appears to increase risk of breast cancer in adulthood.[27] Some of the highest concentrations of DDT and DDE in humans have been found in breast milk, which also makes breast-feeding infants at risk of DDT and DDE exposure.[28],[29] In general, however, the benefits of breast-feeding still outweigh the risks.”
“Timing, Duration & Pattern“
“For many years it was believed that the harmful effects of all toxic chemicals increased with an increasing dose or exposure, and that there was a low threshold dose below which there was no harmful effect. It was also assumed that both adults and children responded similarly to toxic exposures. Scientific evidence now shows that some chemicals, especially endocrine disrupting compounds, can exert negative effects at extremely low levels of exposure, sometimes with more serious or different effects than at higher doses. The timing, duration and pattern of exposure are just as important as the dose. While it’s good to limit exposure to toxic chemicals and radiation at every stage of life, it is even more important during critical periods, including gestation, childhood and pregnancy.”
“Low Dose Effects” (critical understanding of the DDT threat here)
“Except in cases of accidental or occupational exposures, most exposures to chemicals are at “very low doses.” Most chemical safety studies look at the toxic effects of higher doses of chemicals and then assume decreasing toxicity with lower doses. Yet substances that disrupt the body’s own hormones — known as endocrine-disrupting compounds (EDCs)—can exert important biological effects at low doses – including those at which they are found in the everyday environment. These effects are often qualitatively different from those found in traditional toxicology experiments. Low-dose effects are especially likely in developing tissues, during the formative periods when even minuscule levels of naturally occurring hormones determine the normal course of development.[1] EDC effects are often strongest at low doses at developmental stages when the complex hormonal regulation has not yet been established.[2]
I hope that by now you’re interested in the science behind my assertion that this atrocity is actually happening in plain sight. First, please visit the Breast Cancer Prevention Partners website and spend time learning what they have to share – this website offers a lot of very well-researched and well-crafted information on the consequences of even ultra-low dose DDT exposure along with every kind of environmental chemical exposure related to breast cancer – many of which are bundled right along with DDT in Swishers and lots of other brands we haven’t been able to test yet.
Here’s a loosely-curated selection of key research that supports the imperative that the contamination of tobacco products with neurochemicals and ECDs must end. Making this all the more imperative is that the industry has demonstrated that it can produce a low-residue and even organic tobacco cigarette. That means that none of this suffering and death, even unto future generations, need not happen. I believe the solution is awareness more than legislation and hope that you, dear reader, can find a way to help raise that awareness.
DDT and Breast Cancer: Prospective Study of Induction Time and Susceptibility Windows
Conclusions: p, p’-DDT was associated with breast cancer through age 54 years. Risk depended on timing of first exposure and diagnosis age, suggesting susceptibility windows and an induction period beginning in early life. DDT appears to be an endocrine disruptor with responsive breast targets from in utero to menopause
Evidence has accumulated for several chemicals that environmental factors have a stronger effect on breast cancer risk when exposure occurred early in life. The insecticide, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, is an excellent example and is just one of several chemicals for which there seems to be both animal and human evidence for the developmental basis of adult disease.
High levels of serum p,p′–DDT predicted a statistically significant 5-fold increased risk of breast cancer among women who were born after 1931. These women were under 14 years of age in 1945, when DDT came into widespread use, and mostly under 20 years as DDT use peaked. Women who were not exposed to p,p′–DDT before 14 years of age showed no association between p,p′–DDT and breast cancer (p = 0.02 for difference by age).
Conclusions
Exposure to p,p′–DDT early in life may increase breast cancer risk. Many U.S. women heavily exposed to DDT in childhood have not yet reached 50 years of age. The public health significance of DDT exposure in early life may be large.
Ancestral dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) exposure promotes epigenetic transgenerational inheritance of obesity
Ancestral environmental exposures to a variety of environmental factors and toxicants have been shown to promote the epigenetic transgenerational inheritance of adult onset disease. The present work examined the potential transgenerational actions of the insecticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) on obesity and associated disease.
Conclusions
Observations indicate ancestral exposure to DDT can promote obesity and associated disease transgenerationally. The etiology of disease such as obesity may be in part due to environmentally induced epigenetic transgenerational inheritance.
Interaction between genetic polymorphism of cytochrome P450-1B1 and environmental pollutants in breast cancer risk
CYP polymorphisms, mediated by long term OCs exposure, activate protein dynamics via allosteric regulation of mitochondria’s electron transport [70] and related metabolic pathways [71].
The framework of all known phenotype and disease gene associations, could be indicative of the common genetic origin of many diseases. Colorectal, pancreatic, hepatic, thyroid, breast cancer, renal cancer and sarcoma are involved in the correlation between OCs exposure and carcinogenicity.
The presence of a CYP1A1 MspI (rs4646903) polymorphism associated with OCs exposure may affect spermatogenesis by modifying the metabolism of androgens. It was concluded that increased DDE-DDT (Dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene-DDT) exposure affects semen motility, concentration and morphology, especially under the existence of CYP1A1 MspI (rs4646903) polymorphism.
Finally, to make the point that it isn’t only smokers of Swishers who are at risk, here are a few more of the brands I was able to get tested in 2018 for the “Smoke No Evil” trials.
Marlboros don’t have any DDT! Yay! Or Camels either! Yippee! We’re safe! Aren’t we?
It took me 20+ years after this memoto get the hard data – how’s this for “proactively applying sound science”? Does it look like the industry pesticide committee ever did anything but perhaps meet and decide they had enough regulators, scientists and politicians in their pocket that they didn’t have to worry about it “getting out of control”.
Community Tobacco Control Partners Test Results 12/18
Hello! This blog post is now part of my newly published ebook “Smoke No Evil“, which is published on Amazon but its available free for the asking to visitors like you – see below.
I here’s nothing wrong with smoking Tobacco. It’s as safe as wine, beer, or cheeseburgers. It’s the Tobacco Cartel’s products that sicken and kill. “Smoking-related Death” has nothing to do with Tobacco. Many people understand the truth, but don’t know the whole story.
Just click here to request your free review copy of “Smoke No Evil”. After you read it, I hope that you’ll add your voice to those demanding investigation and accountability for the Tobacco Cartel. My hope is also that the knowledge in this book can be life-changing for smokers who are trapped in addiction to commercial Tobacco Cartel products, and life-affirming for those who already understand and smoke or vape only organic tobacco whenever possible.
Whether you smoke, vape, or chew tobacco this book destroys the myth that tobacco is going to harm you. Using data and hard evidence, this book proves that it’s not tobacco killing millions of smokers every year, and it never has been. You’ll see how the “science” used to prove that Tobacco is a killer is pure fraud and deception on the part of the Tobacco Cartel, and pure hypocrisy on the part of regulators and anti-tobacco propagandists.
My hope is that the knowledge here can be life-changing for smokers who are trapped in addiction to commercial Tobacco Cartel products, particularly people who are members of oppressed minority communities where the damage from pesticides in cheap tobacco products is magnified by genetic vulnerability.
My hope is that the knowledge here can be life-changing for smokers who are trapped in addiction to commercial Tobacco Cartel products.
Hello! This blog post is now part of my newly published ebook “Smoke No Evil“, which is published on Amazon but its available free for the asking to visitors like you – see below.
I here’s nothing wrong with smoking Tobacco. It’s as safe as wine, beer, or cheeseburgers. It’s the Tobacco Cartel’s products that sicken and kill. “Smoking-related Death” has nothing to do with Tobacco. Many people understand the truth, but don’t know the whole story.
Just click here to request your free review copy of “Smoke No Evil”. After you read it, I hope that you’ll add your voice to those demanding investigation and accountability for the Tobacco Cartel. My hope is also that the knowledge in this book can be life-changing for smokers who are trapped in addiction to commercial Tobacco Cartel products, and life-affirming for those who already understand and smoke or vape only organic tobacco whenever possible.
Whether you smoke, vape, or chew tobacco this book destroys the myth that tobacco is going to harm you. Using data and hard evidence, this book proves that it’s not tobacco killing millions of smokers every year, and it never has been. You’ll see how the “science” used to prove that Tobacco is a killer is pure fraud and deception on the part of the Tobacco Cartel, and pure hypocrisy on the part of regulators and anti-tobacco propagandists.
My hope is that the knowledge here can be life-changing for smokers who are trapped in addiction to commercial Tobacco Cartel products, particularly people who are members of oppressed minority communities where the damage from pesticides in cheap tobacco products is magnified by genetic vulnerability.
My hope is that the knowledge here can be life-changing for smokers who are trapped in addiction to commercial Tobacco Cartel products.
Oregonians smoke 11.1 Million grams or 390,000 ounces of tobacco products a day. That puts Tobacco sales in Oregon over 4 Billion grams, or almost 9 million pounds of tobacco products a year. Californians smoke 62.3 Million grams or 2.3 Million ounces of Tobacco products a day. The amount of tobacco product smoked in California in a year almost requires an exponential expression – 22,739,500,000 grams a year.
How many of those 4 Billion grams a year are being grown by Oregon Cannabis growers? How about the 22 Billion a year in California?
How many of those 11.1 million grams a day in Oregon are heirloom tobacco varieties like Mopan Mayan, Mount Pima or Aztec Rustica?
How many have such individualistic aroma and flavor profiles that they match beautifully with unique Oregon-grown Cannabis terpene profiles?
How many are being sold alongside Oregon’s premium Cannabis in Oregon dispensaries?
How many of those grams are “medicinal Tobacco” – and what could a new designation like that mean?
I think it’s quite possible that some of those 11.1 million grams a day can be authentic heirloom tobacco, grown both indoors and sun-grown as a complementary crop by skilled Oregon Cannabis growers. I think it can sell at $3.50/gram, $100/ounce retail implying gross farm revenues of $30/ounce or $480/pound at wholesale, with strong retail-price web selling options.
A market of 9 million pounds a year at $480 a pound represents a theoretical total for on-farm revenues of $4.5 Billion per year. A fraction of that amount would still represent a major new agricultural opportunity for Oregon growers.
As a point of comparison, Santa Fe Natural Tobacco buys 1.7 million pounds of organic tobacco a year from 100+ growers worldwide for manufacturing just the American Spirit organic cigarette brand. None of the SFNT’s other natural brands are organic tobacco. As you can see, even American Spirit organic cigarettes total tobacco demand for worldwide production amounts to only a tiny fraction of just Oregon’s own tobacco consumption. There may be a lot of room in local, state and regional markets for new heirloom tobacco/cannabis brands that can begin very small at the farm producer level.
I think $25,000 a quarter acre (500-600 cured pounds) is reasonable if the untapped market is anything like what I believe it is. An existing cannabis grower can find out pretty quickly. Just put in a couple each of maybe six different heirloom tobacco strains off to the side, raise them and cure them out using traditional methods, then do a nice blend with your cannabis flowers (or trim) and try it out locally with maybe a few hundred people. Find out what they think. Get an idea of what they will pay. After doing that, any cannabis grower would know for sure what the local market is for heirloom tobacco at virtually no cost to find out.
Grams of Tobacco Consumed Per-Day In Selected Cannabis Growing States
Cannabis and Tobacco are such a natural pair in the marketplace and in peoples’ lives that it makes sense, if you are in the Cannabis business, to look at the tobacco business. You can bet this predatory industry is looking at Oregon’s Cannabis.
In order to approach this idea productively you have to set aside everything you believe you know about Tobacco itself, the Tobacco industry, growing Tobacco, Tobacco products, the economics of Tobacco, and the medical and scientific evidence against Tobacco (which is actually against Tobacco products – not at all the same thing, which is at the core of the industry’s con game.)
So far there doesn’t seem to have been a market anywhere in the world where $500/pound indoor-grown heirloom, perhaps even organic tobacco can be justified by a potential market. Nobody in the world is currently paying $100/Ounce retail for tobacco. That probably sounds crazy.
However, I think it’s possible that Oregon may have inadvertently reached the point where people can discover the value of $100/ounce tobacco, which is what I think real heirloom tobacco is worth, but for the moment let’s just agree that tobacco is a very valuable plant that Cannabis growers may not have considered and that the public has not yet discovered.
I believe that thousands of people are ready to discover the pleasures of heirloom tobacco smoked and vaped with their artisan cannabis, and all the circumstances that could release this unrealized demand look to me like they line up for Oregon Cannabis growers in 2019.
With many of the heirloom varieties maturing at under 70 days and some in as little as 45 days after planting out, there is plenty of time for indoor and outdoor growers to get ready, put in a small tobacco patch, and see what happens.
Background & Discussion
There are +/- 800,000 tobacco product users in Oregon, and they smoke, dip, vape and chew everything from cigarettes to blunts, from snus to chew. But for the sake of keeping it simple let’s just say that on average each tobacco product user in Oregon smokes 17 cigarettes a day, the US average, or the equivalent in some other tobacco product. At 0.8 grams of tobacco materials per cigarette (which is a whole ‘nuther story), that means that Oregon tobacco users are consuming 11,100,000 grams of what they believe is tobacco a day, over 4 Billion grams a year.
With many Oregon Cannabis growers getting slammed at only $500/pound for their flowers and their indoor production costs running around $1.25/gram, many growers are looking around for ideas, and this may be one worth considering. Even when Cannabis prices can be managed back up to more reasonable levels by opening export markets, which will provide temporary relief for some growers, the time may be right for growers to consider the potential market for heirloom Tobacco production at what I think is a sustainable grower price of $500/pound.
Heirloom Tobacco Under Lights – The Research
I really don’t know that it will be feasible to put tobacco and cannabis plants side-by-side under lights as a commercial proposition. It’s never been tried to my knowledge, and there are some questions to be answered. But, with some of the compact tobacco strains whose height and growth cycle to maturity can be coordinated with the Cannabis strains under cultivation – quite likely. It is certainly one of the first things I would try. Some kind of inter-planting might work well, especially with some of the heirloom tobacco varieties that have compact growth profiles. I have several varieties in mind that grow quickly to maturity, have relatively compact profiles, and have leaves that cure to mild but potent smoke.
But whether in its own space under lights, or in a curtained off part of an indoor Cannabis grow space – I believe that heirloom tobacco production under lights might be a very profitable junior partner in an indoor Cannabis business. There has been plenty of research and experience with conventional tobacco that can be ported over to indoor tobacco/cannabis production.
Experienced Cannabis growers will be able to immediately put the research data on every aspect of tobacco to use in growing heirloom varieties even though almost all the research is done on either the conventional tobacco types used by the industry or experimental strains that were never meant to be smoked. There are thousands of studies involving every conceivable parameter of tobacco grown in greenhouses or under lights for research.
Be careful! Sorting through all the irrelevant tobacco research that’s out there could take a lifetime, since tobacco is the white rat of plant genetics and is used extensively in plant biology research worldwide. Sorting through and applying the relevant knowledge base to small-scale heirloom tobacco production will not be a stretch, and I can be helpful. It’s important to note that since Cannabis growers love to experiment, they will find that Tobacco is at least as responsive and interesting a plant as Cannabis. Once a market for premium Oregon heirloom tobacco is established, a market for new strains of heirloom tobacco crosses won’t be far behind.
There are a number of special characteristics of tobacco that I think will make it profitable enough per square foot of indoor production space that it can work from that perspective. For example, the way tobacco is harvested, one maturing leaf at a time working from the bottom up, is in synch with the rhythms of Cannabis flower harvesting with multiple, continuous passes. Cannabis flowers and tobacco leaves receive parallel treatments in handling and drying – I see no reason why they couldn’t share the same space. Tobacco and Cannabis can, obviously, be packaged together in a lot of creative ways.
There are many other reasons why I believe that parallel indoor tobacco and cannabis production is feasible here in Oregon and maybe elsewhere.
Potential Heirloom Tobacco Markets
Under rational market conditions Cannabis production is much more profitable than anything else including Tobacco (wait for legal Coca Leaf production), but while Tobacco isn’t Cannabis in dollar value per SF, it’s up there.
More important the markets for Cannabis and Tobacco are almost exactly the same – with some important differences, but still with huge overlap. In other words, people who enjoy beautiful Cannabis flowers will love aromatic tobacco leaf, and people who are hooked on 20-40-60 commercial cigarettes a day might find that 2-3 hand-rolled (or pre-rolled) real tobacco smokes would do them just fine. Oregon Health Authority says that roughly 250,000 of the 800,000 Oregonian adults who smoke cigarettes also smoke Cannabis – I think the crossover is far greater and will exceed expectations. The same is true in every Cannabis-legal state.
The fact that high quality heirloom tobacco indoors under lights on a boutique commercial scale hasn’t been done before doesn’t mean the knowledge isn’t there – it is. Frankly there is very little that is mysterious about growing tobacco, and the finer points of each strain will reveal themselves to curious growers just as the secrets of Cannabis plants unfold for the attentive grower. There are very good reasons why Native Americans understood that Tobacco is a sacred plant, and with their respectful attitudes toward sacred traditions Oregon growers are well-suited to re-discover those qualities while building an incredible new business sector at the same time.
A good selection of heirloom tobacco seeds is, for some strange reason, readily available online, and Native American tribes have privileged access to a US government-funded tobacco germplasm collection where every strain of tobacco ever grown or discovered wild in the world is kept alive and producing a pure line of seed. In many, even most cases people will be able to access tobacco seed from the specific sacred tobacco that, for example, may have been collected 150 years ago on their ancestral land by a government botanist cataloging Native American medicinal plants.
The possibilities are really quite endless.
Sun-Grown Cannabis Flower
I’m an old-time outdoor Cannabis grower and I don’t mean to ignore the potential for a single summer crop of sun-grown heirloom tobacco as an adjunct to Cannabis for Oregon’s outdoor growers. The same environmental and cultural factors that make Oregon Cannabis such a distinctive high-value crop can work to the advantage of Oregon Cannabis growers who might start with a few heirloom tobacco plants outdoors as an experiment and see where it goes. It might take a bit of legal work or maybe not, but I don’t see any reason why an Oregon Cannabis grower who wants to grow some Aztec Rustica and then pre-roll some of their Durban Poison flower in their Aztec Rustica leaf shouldn’t go right ahead and do it.
And of course it won’t be long before somebody discovers the delights of THC & Terpene-infused heirloom tobacco leaf.
The fact that tobacco is very attractive to bugs will undoubtedly be an issue outdoors in Oregon; however, native tobacco strains are adapted to their natural environments and there are a number of NW native tobacco strains available as well as some heirloom strains from other environments that might also do well in Oregon’s short-cycle summers. There has also been a lot of work done on organic tobacco production done at NCSU that can be adapted for both indoor and outdoor purposes in Oregon.
At the core of Oregon growers’ advantage, however, is that Oregon growers are used to spending a lot of quality time with their plants, and that’s exactly what it takes to produce premium tobacco. I have studied 300 years of worldwide tobacco literature and can say without doubt that experienced hand labor is proven beyond doubt to be the path to premium tobacco. It’s really no different than wine grapes or Cannabis flowers. Technology and chemistry can go a long way in certain directions, but there will always be a market for hand-produced, highest quality, organic or responsibly grown Cannabis, Wine, Food and Tobacco.
A New Market For Trim?
Cannabis growers may find that they have a higher-value use for their trim when they blend their highest quality Cannabis trim leaf with heirloom tobacco leaf to make a very special RYO blend that can carry their own growers brand name because of its unique characteristics. With over 800 varieties of heirloom tobacco to choose from, growers will have no trouble differentiating themselves through skillful tobacco/cannabis blending of both leaf and flower.
CBD Hemp
Many different people are attracted to the exploding market for responsibly-grown CBD hemp, and growing Cannabis as hemp using very similar horticultural techniques can be very profitable as long as the market holds up. People say that CBD growers right now are getting $2500-$60,000 acre for their production depending on where they are, what strain they’re growing, how well its growing, and the selling terms and prices in their market. I’m sure that a lot of people are already warning about a flood of new production hitting the market and what that will do to prices, so Hemp growers who have learned from history are probably already looking around for complementary production possibilities.
I’ll propose that as long as a grower is getting into a couple of acres of CBD hemp as a start-up why not put in a quarter acre of an attractive heirloom tobacco strain too and see what happens if you pick it, cure it, and sell it on Amazon or at your farmers market. It’s at least as easy as Cannabis to grow, harvest and cure. Then you’ll be able to answer the important questions for yourself. Do people like it? Will they pay a good price for it? If they will, maybe you ought to think about growing some more. Not go into full-scale heirloom tobacco production, but a nice steady $20-30,000/acre (or more) on a couple of acres isn’t a bad little side-business. Maybe if a few growers are doing it then you get together as an heirloom tobacco growers co-op, buy some inexpensive, low-volume tobacco leaf processing machinery, and develop your own brand.
Lets Do the Math
At this point, ZERO of Oregon’s 11.1 million grams a day are heirloom, exotic tobaccos grown under lights year-round and under the summer sun by experienced Oregon Cannabis growers. Maybe that’s because we haven’t actually done the math and maybe looked at things in new ways.
Here’s the math – pretty simple stuff.
40,000 SF of Tobacco = 2200+ pounds of prime leaf* per cycle @ $500/Pound = $1,100,000/per cycle x 2 cycles/year = $2,200,000/Year/Acre
*this is a conservative fact-based yield estimate; I will argue that a reasonable expectation indoors under lights is 3000 pounds of prime leaf/acre/cycle
Why $500/Pound? It’s just my opinion of what organic heirloom tobacco might sell for, and because that would work out to about $30/Ounce to the grower and with wholesale/retail margins and taxes we get to $100/Ounce or $10/8th retail for organic heirloom Tobacco at retail. So that’s the question – will a significant number of current Cannabis and Tobacco users be willing to pay $100/ounce for heirloom organic tobacco when it is presented as a premium, Oregon-grown experience in line with ancient traditions.
One ounce of authentic, powerful heirloom tobacco won’t be smoked or vaped at nearly the frequency of contaminated, synthetic commercial tobacco products, and so for regular smokers that $100 ounce will last as long as their ounce of Cannabis and will be perceived by many as extending the life of the more costly Cannabis ounce. We can bet that a lot of people will do the math – one ounce of Cannabis at $300 and one ounce of Tobacco at $100 = two ounces of great smoke at $400 instead of $600. Sweet!
I think that the perceived value of heirloom Tobacco and Cannabis will be seen as roughly equal from the smoker’s point of view. Using tobacco and cannabis together is already well accepted and understood, and in fact is the preferred way of smoking in much of the world. What will be new for Oregon smokers, and for possible export markets in other US states as well, is the experience of smoking authentic tobacco, whether combined with Oregon Cannabis or by itself.
Oregon Cannabis and Tobacco growers would be able to make as a legitimate health claim within Oregon, directed only at Oregon smokers and vapers, that a combination of responsibly-grown heirloom tobacco with responsibly grown Cannabis is a healthier alternative to commercial tobacco. I’ve just documented the extensive pesticide contamination of commercial tobacco products being sold in Oregon, so making the relative safety argument is a slam dunk.
Commercial cigarettes aren’t actually what anyone thinks of as real tobacco, but that comes under a discussion of the marketing advantages of Oregon-grown heirloom tobacco. As for Federal regulations on tobacco; do Oregon growers care about Federal regulations on Cannabis when it comes to in-state Cannabis production and sales?
I think that the Oregon Cannabis industry ought to give serious thought to the development of a parallel heirloom tobacco industry.
Hello! This blog post is now part of my newly published ebook “Smoke No Evil“, which is published on Amazon but its available free for the asking to visitors like you – see below.
I here’s nothing wrong with smoking Tobacco. It’s as safe as wine, beer, or cheeseburgers. It’s the Tobacco Cartel’s products that sicken and kill. “Smoking-related Death” has nothing to do with Tobacco. Many people understand the truth, but don’t know the whole story.
Just click here to request your free review copy of “Smoke No Evil”. After you read it, I hope that you’ll add your voice to those demanding investigation and accountability for the Tobacco Cartel. My hope is also that the knowledge in this book can be life-changing for smokers who are trapped in addiction to commercial Tobacco Cartel products, and life-affirming for those who already understand and smoke or vape only organic tobacco whenever possible.
Whether you smoke, vape, or chew tobacco this book destroys the myth that tobacco is going to harm you. Using data and hard evidence, this book proves that it’s not tobacco killing millions of smokers every year, and it never has been. You’ll see how the “science” used to prove that Tobacco is a killer is pure fraud and deception on the part of the Tobacco Cartel, and pure hypocrisy on the part of regulators and anti-tobacco propagandists.
My hope is that the knowledge here can be life-changing for smokers who are trapped in addiction to commercial Tobacco Cartel products, particularly people who are members of oppressed minority communities where the damage from pesticides in cheap tobacco products is magnified by genetic vulnerability.
Hello! This blog post is now part of my newly published ebook “Smoke No Evil“, which is published on Amazon but its available free for the asking to visitors like you – see below.
I here’s nothing wrong with smoking Tobacco. It’s as safe as wine, beer, or cheeseburgers. It’s the Tobacco Cartel’s products that sicken and kill. “Smoking-related Death” has nothing to do with Tobacco. Many people understand the truth, but don’t know the whole story.
Just click here to request your free review copy of “Smoke No Evil”. After you read it, I hope that you’ll add your voice to those demanding investigation and accountability for the Tobacco Cartel. My hope is also that the knowledge in this book can be life-changing for smokers who are trapped in addiction to commercial Tobacco Cartel products, and life-affirming for those who already understand and smoke or vape only organic tobacco whenever possible.
Whether you smoke, vape, or chew tobacco this book destroys the myth that tobacco is going to harm you. Using data and hard evidence, this book proves that it’s not tobacco killing millions of smokers every year, and it never has been. You’ll see how the “science” used to prove that Tobacco is a killer is pure fraud and deception on the part of the Tobacco Cartel, and pure hypocrisy on the part of regulators and anti-tobacco propagandists.
My hope is that the knowledge here can be life-changing for smokers who are trapped in addiction to commercial Tobacco Cartel products, particularly people who are members of oppressed minority communities where the damage from pesticides in cheap tobacco products is magnified by genetic vulnerability.
Hello! This blog post is now part of my newly published ebook “Smoke No Evil“, which is published on Amazon but its available free for the asking to visitors like you – see below.
I here’s nothing wrong with smoking Tobacco. It’s as safe as wine, beer, or cheeseburgers. It’s the Tobacco Cartel’s products that sicken and kill. “Smoking-related Death” has nothing to do with Tobacco. Many people understand the truth, but don’t know the whole story.
Just click here to request your free review copy of “Smoke No Evil”. After you read it, I hope that you’ll add your voice to those demanding investigation and accountability for the Tobacco Cartel. My hope is also that the knowledge in this book can be life-changing for smokers who are trapped in addiction to commercial Tobacco Cartel products, and life-affirming for those who already understand and smoke or vape only organic tobacco whenever possible.
Whether you smoke, vape, or chew tobacco this book destroys the myth that tobacco is going to harm you. Using data and hard evidence, this book proves that it’s not tobacco killing millions of smokers every year, and it never has been. You’ll see how the “science” used to prove that Tobacco is a killer is pure fraud and deception on the part of the Tobacco Cartel, and pure hypocrisy on the part of regulators and anti-tobacco propagandists.
My hope is that the knowledge here can be life-changing for smokers who are trapped in addiction to commercial Tobacco Cartel products, particularly people who are members of oppressed minority communities where the damage from pesticides in cheap tobacco products is magnified by genetic vulnerability.
