
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, March 28, 1994                   TAG: 9403280052
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

ELDERS OPPOSES OUTRIGHT BAN

Cigarettes should be regulated by federal health officials, but banning them "would not solve the problem" since millions of Americans already are addicted to nicotine, Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders said Sunday.

Elders said she supports Food and Drug Administration chief David Kessler's efforts toward regulating cigarettes as delivery systems for nicotine.

"I'm not sure they would have to ban them, but I certainly think they would have to say cigarettes are addictive, we'd have to tell people that they kill, they would need to know the ingredients so they could make a decision about it," she said on CBS' "Face the Nation."

"To immediately ban cigarettes would not necessarily solve the problem because you would have all those millions of Americans out there that are addicted to this drug. We just can't immediately ban cigarettes without making sure we treat our American people."

- Associated Press

by CNB