Transcript:
You would not let a child smoke a cigarette. But many kids – including some in the U.S. – work on farms picking tobacco for those cigarettes.
And as a result, they can suffer from green tobacco sickness, a kind of nicotine poisoning.
When people pick raw tobacco for hours on end, they can absorb an immense amount of nicotine through their skin, causing symptoms like vomiting and cramps.
This is especially dangerous for children.
Ziska: “Because they’re still developing.”
Lewis Ziska, a Columbia University health researcher, says climate change could increase the risk of green tobacco sickness.
In a recent study, he found that some tobacco-growing regions in Brazil, India, China, and the U.S. could get hotter, wetter, or both as the climate changes.
Nicotine is water-soluble, so it’s absorbed more easily when tobacco leaves or people’s skin are wet with rain or sweat.
And sweating can also boost nicotine absorption by increasing blood flow near the skin.
Ziska: “That suggests that the current risk that’s posed to tobacco workers … will be intensified by climate change.”
So Ziska hopes this growing danger leads to policies that keep children out of tobacco fields.
Reporting credit: Ethan Freedman / ChavoBart Digital Media
