PHYSICIANS GROWING TONS OF TOBACCO

For Many, It's A Matter Of Tradition And Business

RALEIGH, N.C. - HUNDREDS OF doctors across the country own and profit from
tons of tobacco, despite decades of health warnings, scoldings from peers,
and in some cases, their own ethical reservations.

They're family practitioners who warn teenagers not to smoke, psychiatrists
who treat addiction, oncologists who identify malignant tumors and surgeons
who remove them.

One tobacco-owning doctor was a longtime regional medical director for the
American Cancer Society. Another runs a public-health department. A third
writes a newspaper column on health tips.

Few of them smoke.

``I won't smoke,'' says Stephen Jackson, an orthopedic surgeon in Paducah,
Ky., who co-owns the government rights to grow 1,400 pounds of burley
tobacco a year. ``I mean, it will kill you.''

All tell their patients not to smoke or chew tobacco.

``I get mad with them, fuss at them every day,'' says Richard Rush, a
family practitioner from Conway, S.C., with more than 11,000 pounds of
flue-cured tobacco allotted to his farm.

Nonetheless, they are among at least 760 doctors and other health-care
workers who own valuable federal tobacco-growing rights, known as
allotments or quotas, according to a computer analysis by the Associated
Press. They practice in 23 states, from Florida to Alaska, Massachusetts to
California.

Some of the doctors own minuscule government rights, as little as 21 pounds
annually; one in South Carolina has 932,000 pounds.

All told, these doctors control production of more than 7 million pounds of
tobacco -- enough to make 193 million packs of cigarettes a year. They also
grow nearly 290,000 pounds of the varieties of leaf used in chewing tobacco
and cigar wrappers.

At last year's sales prices, their leaf would be worth $13 million --
although a large portion of that goes to family members, sharecroppers and
those who lease much of the crop.

For professionals who have taken an oath not to do harm, those numbers are
``shocking and disappointing,'' medical ethicist Arthur Caplan says.

``I think you just cannot argue that you're going to make money on the back
of this obvious health menace,'' says Caplan, director of the Center for
Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. ``To own and farm and produce
tobacco as a doctor, especially in small communities, sends a resoundingly
wrong message.''

THE FACT that many of these doctors grew up in those small communities is
often their reason for being involved in tobacco. Even so, some are uneasy
about it.

Dr. Edwin Norris has no doubt that a three-pack-a-day habit hastened his
father's death at age 53 from coronary disease. And the Mountain City,
Tenn., general practitioner and cosmetic surgeon has little doubt that
tobacco produced under his 1,925-pound quota is harming other people's
fathers.

``Even though it's legal,'' Norris says, ``we're still responsible for some
of the effects of it.'' His explanation for keeping the tobacco: Neighbors
who actually raise it for him need the poundage to make a living.

Other physicians bought their farms as investments and acknowledge tobacco
proceeds contribute to their wealth.

Although they may only get a nickel to 15 cents a pound for leasing their
tobacco rights to farmers, quotas help pay mortgages and add to the land's
assessed value. With talk in Washington about possible $8-a-pound federal
tobacco buyouts some day, the leaf could constitute an even more valuable
asset.

``I'm too greedy,'' George Burrus, a cardiovascular surgeon in Nashville,
Tenn., says when asked about his decision to keep his 6,500-pound quota,
even though he says he knows tobacco is ``killing people.'' He clears about
$4,000 a year from leasing his leaf.

``I don't worry about it enough to (sell out) since I don't feel like, say,
the guy that's raising dope.''

The AP identified these doctors by cross-checking a federal farm database
with medical rosters from tobacco states. To verify matches, the AP
contacted scores of physicians by telephone.

Some hung up when they heard the word ``tobacco.'' Most who stayed on the
line expressed ambivalence.

``Absolutely schizophrenic'' is how Dr. William Grigsby described the
notion of physicians growing tobacco.

``It's crazy, but I'll tell you why we do it,'' says the general surgeon
from Kingsport, Tenn., who owns about 3,700 pounds of quota. ``Almost the
only doctors who raise tobacco have grown up on the farm and have the
kinfolks there.''

ONE IS Richard Calhoun. He was raised on a tobacco farm, and tobacco money
helped put him through college and medical school.

On Wednesdays, when other doctors hit the golf course, Calhoun dons bib
overalls and a baseball cap and drives a beat-up red flatbed truck around
his mountainside farm in western North Carolina. He raises hay, cattle,
Christmas trees and about 7,000 pounds of burley.

``Tobacco is a proud heritage for North Carolina,'' says Calhoun, who
practices in Jefferson, near the Tennessee line. ``I want to maintain that
part of my heritage.''

He knows the links between the crop he grows and diseases he treats, from
cancer to heart disease. Is that inconsistent?

``I do feel that tobacco is harmful to one's health,'' Calhoun replies.
``But more important than that, I feel that, as citizens of the United
States, we have the freedom of choice. And I don't think that governmental
regulation should infringe upon one's ability to make choices in this
regard.''

Checked-by: Richard Lake