# And in tonight's episode of 'People Unclear on the Concept ...'

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-in-tonights-episode-of-people-unclear-on-the-concept/116946>\
**Category:** The BBQ Pit\
**Created:** [July 2, 2002, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-in-tonights-episode-of-people-unclear-on-the-concept/116946 "2002-07-02T01:02:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Milossarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Milossarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Milossarian)\
**Post date:** [July 2, 2002, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-in-tonights-episode-of-people-unclear-on-the-concept/116946/1 "2002-07-02T01:02:02Z")

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According to [Time Magazine](http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101020701-265461,00.html), the state of North Carolina used a portion of its tobacco settlement money to build infrastructure for a tobacco manufacturing plant.

> [@](#):
>
> Last fall Golden LEAF (Long-Term Economic Advancement Foundation), a nonprofit organization established by the North Carolina General Assembly to distribute half the state’s settlement revenues, spent $15,000 for a tobacco-history video. Perhaps more egregiously, it granted rural Nash County $400,000 for water and sewer engineering to attract a tobacco-processing plant. “The money is going in a circle here,” says Don Carrington, vice president of the John Locke Foundation, a state-government watchdog group.
> 
> Proponents of the plan say the water and sewer improvements will expand service along a five-mile undeveloped stretch, and the plant will bring 1,100 jobs to a region where unemployment is above 10%. “This is a perfectly allowable use of the funds,” says John Gessaman, president of the economic-development corporation that applied for the grant. It may be perfectly legal, but then again, so is smoking.

I’m all for providing jobs. And a lot of states are using their tobacco money for things that aren’t smoking- or even health-related. (My state, Michigan, started a merit scholarship program for graduating high school seniors.)

Still, something about taking money that your state received because so many people were wrongly killed or harmed by cigarette smoking, and using it to make cigarettes, strikes me as a bit … self-defeating?

Maybe NC can use part of their money for a new children’s campaign, aimed at bolstering the lagging chewing tobacco market. “Percy the Plug-Chaw.” Interactive spit-a-longs, make your own spittoon, etc.

Where others may see incongruous lunacy, I see _possibilities_.

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**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\
**Post date:** [July 2, 2002, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-in-tonights-episode-of-people-unclear-on-the-concept/116946/2 "2002-07-02T02:01:32Z")

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I’m certain that the Tobacco Lobby is appreciative, though, and will pump back similar numbers into the coffers of local politicians.

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**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\
**Post date:** [July 2, 2002, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-in-tonights-episode-of-people-unclear-on-the-concept/116946/3 "2002-07-02T02:52:37Z")

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This is a smart move on behalf of the North Carolina legislature (and when’s the last time you heard someone say that?) If they don’t help the ciggie manufactures out now, what’s the state going to do ten years down the line when all the settlement money has run out? This way, they insure that they’ll still have someone to sue in the future. They’re making sure tobacco settlements are a renewable resource. How enviromental!