Farmers (!) want cigarette ingredients on packs

“The filter boom is doubly gratifying to manufacturers. Filter cigarettes sell for 2¢ to 10¢ a pack more than regulars, but cost less to produce. Chief reason: they use a low-grade, high-nicotine, heavy-bodied tobacco to get the taste through to the smoker….

“Manufacturers are also trimming tobacco bills by salvaging the stems and scraps they once threw away, pulverizing them into homogenized tobacco to mix with regular leaf. As a result, makers bought 35 million lbs. less tobacco last year than in 1955, and tobaccoland farmers are howling. In North Carolina, where two-thirds of U.S. cigarette tobacco is grown, the state senate recently urged Congress to order that cigarette ingredients be stated on every package. Complained State Senator Henry G. Shelton [of Edgecombe County]: ‘What is happening to the cigarette is a shame. It is scrap tobacco at one end, cellulose at the other and tissue paper all around.’ ”

— From Time magazine, April 22, 1957