President's Tobacco Commission

Final Report of the President's Commission

• Campaign Release: Presidential Commission Calls for Compensating Tobacco Quota Owners and Growers, Other Economic Aid to Address Crisis in Tobacco-Growing Communities (5.14.01)
  
  
• Tobacco at a Crossroad: A Call for Action: Final Report of the President's Commission on Improving Economic Opportunity in Communities Dependent on Tobacco Production While Protecting Public Health (1.58MB .pdf, 5.14.01)
  
  
• Summary: Major Findings and Recommendations
  
  
• Chart: Payments to Tobacco Quota Owners and Farms
  
  
• Chart: Declining Percentage of U.S. Tobacco Leaf in American-made Cigarettes, 1960-1999

Preliminary Report of the President's Commission

• Campaign Release: Presidential Commission Calls for Action to Address “Unprecedented Crisis” Facing Tobacco Farmers and Communities (1.26.01)
  
  
• Short Version: Tobacco Communities at a Crossroad: The Preliminary Report of the President's Commission on Improving Economic Opportunity in Communities Dependent on Tobacco Production While Protecting Public Health (text only 98K .pdf, released 1.26.01)
  
  
• Long Version: Tobacco Communities at a Crossroad (attention complete 6MB .pdf with graphics)

The President's Commission on Improving Economic Opportunity in Communities Dependent on Tobacco Production While Protecting Public Health

The Campaign supports the recommendations contained in the May 2001 final report of the President's Commission. Since then, public health and grower groups have been working together to implement the Commission's recommendations through federal legislation that would:

• Provide tobacco growers and quota holders with fair and equitable compensation for their quota funded through a user fee on the tobacco companies or other source of new revenue. The current quota system would be replaced with production permits to be held only by active growers.
• Replace the current tobacco program with a new system of licensing that controls supply, maintains price, protects family farmers and gives farmers and their communities both short-term and long-term stability.
• Provide economic development assistance to tobacco communities.
• Provide the U.S. Food and Drug Administration with effective authority over manufactured tobacco products comparable to the authority it has over other consumer products, while retaining the Department of Agriculture's role over tobacco growing.

These findings and recommendations were unanimously adopted by the ten member commission. The Commission was formed by executive order in September 2000. It released a preliminary report in January 2001. The Commission consisted of an equal number of tobacco growers and public health advocates, as well as economic development experts. The Commission was chaired by Rod Kuegel, then President of the Burley Tobacco Growers Cooperative Association and a burley tobacco grower in Kentucky, and Matthew L. Myers, President of the Washington, D.C.-based Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. Members included Andrew Shepherd, flue-cured tobacco grower and Vice President and Director of Flue-Cured Tobacco Cooperative Stabilization Corporation; James Hill, flue-cured tobacco grower and Director of Flue-Cured Tobacco Cooperative Stabilization Corporation; Ronald Sroufe, retired school administrator and burley tobacco grower; M. Cass Wheeler, Chief Executive Officer, American Heart Association; John Seffrin, Chief Executive Officer, American Cancer Society; LynnCarol Birgmann, Executive Director, Kentucky ACTION; Jesse White, Jr., Federal Co-Chair, Appalachian Regional Commission; and Art Campbell, former Assistant Secretary, Economic Development Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce.