Abstract:
The report of Luther Terry, Surgeon-General of the United States, and his committee--titled Smoking and Health--was released to reporters on January 11, 1964. The meeting was in a sealed room at the State Department with guards at the doors. The essence of this report was that smoking was \"a health hazard of such importance to the United States to warrant immediate action.\" Although politicians and farmers in North Carolina denied it, it marked the beginning of the end for the state's money crop. In 1964 there were 87,576 tobacco farmers in the state and in 2007 there were 2,622.