I had a 7 hour drive down to Florida today, and as I was cruising (hauling ass) down the freeway, I tuned in to an interesting piece about an 85 mile stretch of Louisiana known informally as “Cancer Alley”. Massive petrochemical plants are producing all sorts of highly toxic things I can’t pronounce, as well as storing and disposing of large amounts of chemicals and waste from their manufacturing processes. A cursory google search produces some mildly alarming numbers related to the amount of chemicals released into the air and water. Cancer rates and respiratory diseases both seem to exceed the national average by a fair bit. Could be that all of these people chain smoke their cigarettes and work in these plants without protecting themselves, so the cancer rate statistic might not be as telling as it seems.
However, it is pretty clear that these factories are dumping shit loads of chemicals into the surrounding environment. Our current political climate of deregulation on environmental protection policies only increases the rate of pollution, I’m sure. So as I’m listening to this piece, they bring in an activist to discuss his story about loads of cancer deaths in his community and guess where the gentleman is from? You guessed it - St. James, Louisiana! I hopped over to google for a quick geography refresher, and St. James Parish sits smack in the middle of “Cancer Alley”. I’m not one for shouting doom and gloom and jumping to conclusions, but it seems possible that our much loved Perique could be absorbing some of these chemicals from the air, soil, and water, no?
I’d be interested to hear from some people who are knowledgeable about the cultivation conditions of Perique, to know if they can say with certainty that this tobacco is not absorbing and retaining any of this toxic material? Are there any scientists among us who perhaps have the knowledge and means to perform some sort of chemical analysis on St. James perique to see if there is anything unwanted lurking within? A huge draw of smoking pipe tobacco is that it isn’t pumped full of chemicals like the cigarettes I used to smoke. I would be fairly devastated if Perique turned out to be chock full of toxic material, too.
However, it is pretty clear that these factories are dumping shit loads of chemicals into the surrounding environment. Our current political climate of deregulation on environmental protection policies only increases the rate of pollution, I’m sure. So as I’m listening to this piece, they bring in an activist to discuss his story about loads of cancer deaths in his community and guess where the gentleman is from? You guessed it - St. James, Louisiana! I hopped over to google for a quick geography refresher, and St. James Parish sits smack in the middle of “Cancer Alley”. I’m not one for shouting doom and gloom and jumping to conclusions, but it seems possible that our much loved Perique could be absorbing some of these chemicals from the air, soil, and water, no?
I’d be interested to hear from some people who are knowledgeable about the cultivation conditions of Perique, to know if they can say with certainty that this tobacco is not absorbing and retaining any of this toxic material? Are there any scientists among us who perhaps have the knowledge and means to perform some sort of chemical analysis on St. James perique to see if there is anything unwanted lurking within? A huge draw of smoking pipe tobacco is that it isn’t pumped full of chemicals like the cigarettes I used to smoke. I would be fairly devastated if Perique turned out to be chock full of toxic material, too.