Many people don’t like to talk about it in this part of the country because tobacco was once a big cash crop — perhaps the largest.

Times have changed because some people became wiser and chose not to pump their lungs full of nicotine and other carcinogen gases.

President Obama has signed a bill that in essence will attempt to keep more tobacco out of the hands of kids. The intention is good. Whether it will work remains to be seen.

There are those who will argue that tobacco is not a health issue. Likewise there are those who will argue that the Holocaust didn’t happen. For either, the evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.

The tobacco market of the South (and many of us grew up on tobacco farms) is likely one of our biggest hypocrisies. We have come far in the battle against cigarette smoke by educating the public as to its health dangers (cancer, emphysema, heart disease, etc.) as well as banning smoking in public places where non-smokers were subjected to the second-hand, unfiltered smoke.

Some argued this was government intrusion. Talk to one patient who has terminal cancer linked to smoking or an emphysema patient who must carry an oxygen tank with him everywhere he goes and one’s perception possibly can change ... if in fact enlightenment is the pursuit.

There’s one thing that is absolute about cigarettes. They have no socially redeeming value in the sense that nothing good can come to one’s health from this usage. Make that two things ... the public is burdened with much of the costs for treating health issues produced by cigarette smoking — whether they smoke or not.

So if there is a rational way to reduce the chance of our youngsters smoking, then let’s embrace the concept. In a sense, we will be embracing the very lives of those kids.