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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 12, 1994                   TAG: 9401120067
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

HEALTH LEADERS WANT TOUGHER TOBACCO LAWS

Health leaders and seven past surgeons general called on the government Tuesday to tax cigarettes $2 more a pack, ban smoking in public places, restrict tobacco ads and fully regulate cigarettes in an effort to make America smoke free by the year 2000.

"This nation remains in tobacco's death grip" three decades after first being told that cigarettes cause cancer, Dr. Alfred Munzer, president of the American Lung Association, said as the group sought President Clinton's endorsement of its plans.

Health groups marked the 30th anniversary of the original surgeon general's report on tobacco by scolding Congress and presidents alike for their past efforts to restrict a habit still blamed for 420,000 deaths a year.

Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders said 2 million lives have been saved since her predecessor, the late Dr. Luther Terry, warned Americans on Jan. 11, 1964, that smoking caused cancer.

Two million people also have died of smoking-related lung cancers alone in that period. But back then, more than two in every five adults smoked. Today, one in four is a smoker.

Terry's crusade led to warning labels on cigarette packs. Cigarette ads were banished from the airwaves, airlines created no-smoking sections and eventually smoking was banned on most domestic flights and in many offices.

But former Bush administration Surgeon General Antonia Novello said tobacco still is "the least regulated consumer product" in the United States and is marketed "with reckless abandon" at the young by companies that need to replace smokers who die and the 1 million who kick the habit each year.

Former President Jimmy Carter sent Clinton a letter urging him to stand up to tobacco interests and seek a $2 tax increase on each pack of cigarettes. Clinton has already proposed a 75-cent increase to pay for health reforms. Congress has to approve any change.

The group urged Clinton "to speak forcefully in favor of regulation of tobacco products," including tighter controls on advertising and bans on smoking in federal buildings and other public places. It also advocated full authority for the Food and Drug Administration to regulate cigarettes.

by CNB