Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Twenty miles inland of Mexico’s western coast, in a valley in the state of Nayarit so hot and bug-ridden it is known as the “Little Inferno,” Indians from the ancient Huichole tribe are dying at alarming rates.

The Huicholes work in the dense tobacco fields that make this valley rich and that supply some of the tobacco smoked in the United States. If little is known about pesticide poisoning in Culiacan, even less is known in Nayarit, where the U.S. companies financing the crops often fail to ensure that workers use the necessary protective equipment.

Alberto Avila Lamos, 25, has worked in these fields for 11 years. In 1993 he almost died as a result of the growers’ oversight. He was poisoned by a pesticide called methomyl. “I felt the symptoms right after I spilled it on myself,” he says. “At first I felt like I was shaking, then I had a fever, then I started vomiting. The last thing I remember was the smell. It smelled like vanilla. They told me they took me to the hospital and gave me transfusions. I’m not sure. I didn’t wake up for three days.”

On a hot day last spring, growers refused to talk about Lamos’ near-death, or about the dimensions of pesticide poisoning in general. Meanwhile, planes flew low, spraying pesticides over fields full of workers, and young boys walked through the fields applying more.

“It defies common sense,” says Dr. Luciano Garcia, a hospital director in Santiago Ixcuintla, a town in the middle of the tobacco-growing region. “[Growers in Mexico] are making the same mistakes the United States and Canada made a generation ago. There is no good reason for these mistakes to be made again.”

And still the long oval tobacco leaves dry in the sun, strung from cords into graceful curves. At night the Huicholes sleep under them, breathing in the deadly pesticides that coat the tobacco.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate