TOBACCO FARMERS MAKE HISTORY BY RE-ENACTING BOSTON TEA PARTY
LARGESTRALLY YET BY NATION'S TOBACCO FARMERS WARNS OF HISTORY
REPEATING ITSELF 
 
    FRANKFORT, Ky., June 9 /PRNewswire/ -- In the largest grassroots rally
yet by the nation's tobacco growers, more than 3,000 farmers from Kentucky
and other tobacco-producing states in the Southeast converged on Kentucky's
state capital today to stage their own version of the Boston Tea Party. 

Wearing green ball caps inscribed with "Fairness for Tobacco Farmers,"
farmers met with legislators and listened to speeches on the steps of the
Capitol before marching to Capitol Avenue Bridge where they hurled tobacco
into the waters of the Kentucky River.  The rebellion symbolized the farmers'
unified opposition to the proposed increase in the federal cigarette excise
tax. 

The "Kentucky Tobacco Party" parallels the historical Boston Tea Party
because of the haunting similarities between the British tea taxes of the
1770s and the dramatic increases in tobacco taxes in recent years. 

Similar to the British Tea Tax, regressive tobacco taxes will lead to
"underground" cigarette distribution and contraband activity said rally
participants.  When the British Parliament enacted its tea tax on the
American colonies, sales of British tea dropped by 60 percent, while illegal
imports and consumption of contraband tea increased by about the same margin.


Tobacco farmers believe that additional tobacco taxes will create consumer
patterns similar to those of tea consumers in the 1770s. According to the
Toronto-based investigative accounting firm of Lindquist Avey MacDonald
Bakersville Inc., when tobacco taxes were steadily increased in Canada, one
out of every four cigarettes smoked in that country became contraband
(compared to one out of every 176 only a few years ago). 

Henry West, a farmer from Paint Lick, Ky., said the Boston Tea Party
re-enactment was the farmers' way to "hammer a message to President Clinton
that government is already making more than enough money from tobacco." 

As he prepared to toss a stalk of tobacco off the bridge, West said that each
stalk of tobacco represents $5 in local, state and federal taxes. 

"On average, I grow 8,000 stalks of tobacco per acre," he said. "That means
that the government receives $40,000 from each acre of my tobacco. And now
they say they want more!  We're saying enough is enough." 

Former Kentucky Senate Majority Floor Leader Joe Wright, a tobacco farmer
from Harned, Ky., told the gathering: "Ours is a message that was born in
America's farm houses, carried on our backs to the state house, and must be
heard at the White House.  We're asking our Congressional leaders for nothing
more and for nothing less than fairness for tobacco farmers." 

Tobacco is grown on an estimated 136,000 farms in 23 states and Puerto Rico,
according to the Tobacco Institute.  More than 98 percent of Kentucky's
counties grow tobacco.  Kentucky is the world's largest producer of burley
tobacco and many rural communities depend on tobacco money for economic
survival. 

"In 1993, federal, state and local governments collected about $14 billion in
excise and sales taxes on tobacco," said Dr. Wilmer Browning, executive
director of the Council for Burley Tobacco, an umbrella organization for
various associations in the tobacco industry and sponsor of today's rally.
"We believe the tobacco industry is paying more than its fair share in taxes.
Additional taxes will seriously damage the industry and affect thousands of
families." 

Browning added that a large increase in the federal excise tax on tobacco
would greatly reduce sales of those products and, subsequently, reduce tax
revenues in many individual states, creating more budget shortfalls to be
filled by additional taxes. 

Farmers in other tobacco-producing states anticipate rallying before their
state legislators in the months to come.  About 1,000 Tennessee farmers
staged such a rally in April at their state capitol in Nashville. 

-0-                        6/9/94 /CONTACT:  Dan Hartlage, 502-584-0371, or
Brian Waddle, 502-584-0371 or (Night) 502-454-4381,
of Council for Burley Tobacco/ 
 CO:  Council for Burley Tobacco ST:  Kentucky IN:  TOB SU: 



Transmitted:  94-06-09 15:51:14 EDT