I used organic tobacco. I wouldn’t advertise to children, or anyone. Maybe just get small retailers to carry my product and hoped to expand over time. I would prominently warn about the health and addiction risks. I would warn that organic tobacco is not healthy either.
Would that be a legitimate business? Unlike Phillip Morris et al? Any worse than alcohol? Or any other unhealthy vice?
Three Castles Tobacco did something similar 30 years ago. They got out of the American market when all of the tobacco companies were being sued because, you know, tobacco.
Your users (some of them, at least) would still be subjecting non-smokers to secondhand inhalation of smoke.
A “legitimate business”? Sure, there are plenty of businesses that provide harmful products. A defensibly ethical one? Being better than Philip Morris, et al, is a really low bar to vault.
Stranger
Might be worth a bit of inquiry into …
This is what I would have posted, though said more eloquently than I would have managed.
The OP’s idea of “organic tobacco,” while simultaneously stating “organic tobacco is not healthy either,” seems to be a bit of trying to have your cake and eat it, too: implying that organic is somehow better than the other stuff (but it’s all bad for you).
I would think that you’d have something of a leg to stand on, having gone into business after the big tobacco settlements. And if you complied with all legal labeling requirements, as well as added extra “Don’t say we didn’t warn you” type things, I’d think you’d be off the hook.
I mean, in 2024 who is going to smoke tobacco and blame the company producing it? There’s been ample time and educational effort as well as a series of class action lawsuits, that I’d imagine should push the responsibility onto the consumer. Certainly nobody under their mid-50s is going to be unaware that tobacco causes all sorts of issues, and is dramatically unhealthy. If they’re choosing to smoke at this point, that’s their problem.
Have you considered also selling used records?
Is that your vinyl answer?
At least used records might have awesome cover art, while cigarette cartons look more like this:
that mouth is disgusting
If it is a legal product, then it is a legitimate business…although not being any more worse than other unhealthy vices isn’t the best promotional point you can make. BTW, do you intend on keeping this business, or do you plan to sell it off to the big boys for a profit?
I’d just keep it as a family owned business. Put a roof over our heads, put food on the table. Like owning a tavern serving alcohol, or a restaurant serving deep fried food.
Well, not quite like owning a tavern serving alcohol or a restaurant serving deep fried food, since eating and drinking have health benefits that tobacco smoking entirely lacks.
It’s not clear exactly what question you want answered. You ask if your intended enterprise would be “a legitimate business . . . unlike Phillip Morris et al”. If “legitimate” means “lawful”, it would be a legitimate business in exactly the way that Philip Morris etc are legitimate businesses. If “legitimate” means something like “ethically acceptable” then it would not be a legitimate business in exactly the way, and for exactly the reasons, that Philip Morris etc are not legitimate businesses. So I think you’re using some non-obvious sense of “legitimate” that you need to explain before you can get a useful answer to your question.
Philip Morris et al are legitimate businesses. Whether it would be moral / ethical is up to you and your conscience.