Young people on tobacco farms

Thank you for your rebuttal comments. In the first part of your argument, you ask how we can make cigarettes and smoking in public illegal, but allow children to work on tobacco farms receiving the same amount of harm. From the perspective of the United States, it’s not the public’s decision to make. We have to question the assumption that we should make something illegal because the pay is low and the working conditions are poor. Those two factors describe a large range of jobs, from coal mining to paint manufacturing and so on. The idea that we can justify making those kinds of jobs illegal on the basis of low pay and poor working conditions is absurd if we try to apply that to any kind of production work. Workers on these farms should understand the risks and consent to these risks before beginning employment; any employer who does not adequately explain the risks is doing some illegal from a case law perspective. Having to make this farm work illegal from a legislative standpoint is at best redundant and at worst highly restrictive of the public’s interest, if the public is interested in consuming the products produced in working conditions that are poor and by workers who are paid low wages. I agree that tobacco sickness is a significant, moral issue – but, again, think critically about whether we want to set a precedent in the United States that we are going to prohibit activities or business practices because they are immoral, especially when there are significant disagreements about what is moral and what is not. Is it, in fact, even more immoral to tell these farm owners that they will no longer have the staff they need to adequate produce and sell products in the market and therefore they will no longer be able to operate. I stand by my point regarding children who work these farms because they have to, and how will they be impacted by this move to make their labor illegal. I acknowledge that families receive benefits and food stamps, but why would children be working on tobacco farms if they were receiving benefits and food stamps that met all of their needs? The answer is that government support is not enough in all cases; in some cases, children must actually work to support themselves and those who actually depend on them. While Pro’s argument seems to assume that children belong to families receiving government assistance, often the child is an orphan and has no family. In that case, the government provides very little support in terms of monetary help. I grant you that there are other ways that children could make money. They could move into prostitution, they could steal, they could do other illegal things. The important point is, though, that there are few other legally sanctioned ways that children can realistically make money. Stealing, prostitution, and bad deeds are not more moral than tobacco farming because they have less of a health impact. In fact, they are less moral because they impact society broadly. Tobacco farming adds to the economy and adds to the welfare of society, much more so than other behaviors that are exploitative (such as prostitution) or outright harmful (stealing). As a last point, keep in mind that I have restricted the argument to refer only to the United States. Data on social disruption from the World Health Organization (especially with regard to human rights abuses and deforestation) does not necessarily apply to US tobacco companies, which must conform to US case and statutory law with respect to labor and the environment. To conclude, I have not found Pro’s argument that the disadvantages of child labor on tobacco farms outweigh the advantages. I think, before making that statement, you should ask a child who would have no other legitimate way of finding money to support himself or herself. You might ask tobacco farmers who depend on labor to support their communities. You might ask business owners generally whether the government should be involved in restricting the kind of work that people can do, which might have deep and unintended negative consequences, especially when legitimate tobacco farms already try to control the risks to their employees as a matter of legal necessity.