After Vice President Al Gore invoked the memory of his deceased sister, who died in "nearly unbearable pain," in a passionate speech at the Democratic Convention against the dangers of smoking, the Washington Post (among others) pointed out that Gore had been a strong supporter of the tobacco lobby well after her death in 1984. Gore later said it was "numbness" from his sister's death that allowed him to continue to grow tobacco on his family farm in Tennessee and to accept political contributions from tobacco companies as late as six years after his sister's death.

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