TOBACCO SINGLED OUT AS 'BAD' CROP

The Associated Press recently noticed that certain physicians across the country, including a Cape Girardeau cancer specialist, happen to own farmland on which tobacco is grown. We aren't sure what the scandal is in this story. Tobacco has been cultivated in North America for nearly five hundred years. It is an especially important cash crop for our neighbors in Kentucky, as it is in Virginia and the Carolinas.

The right to grow tobacco is granted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in allotments. These allotments are conveyed with the deeds. And a few doctors end up owning land where tobacco is grown. Almost all crops have some baggage -- hops in beer, corn in whiskey, for example -- and are grown on land owned by doctors, among others. Should all crops be held the same test, or is tobacco simply a popular target?