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

DATE: SATURDAY, February 26, 1994                   TAG: 9402260060
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

FDA WANTS TO REGULATE, BAN SMOKING

In a major policy reversal, the Food and Drug Administration on Friday asserted its authority under existing law to regulate and even ban virtually all cigarettes, but it urged Congress to provide clear direction on what the agency should do.

All but accusing the tobacco industry of stoking a public addiction, FDA Commissioner David A. Kessler cited accumulating evidence that nicotine content in cigarettes is being manipulated for that very end - thus making cigarettes, in effect, a drug that falls under FDA jurisdiction.

If the agency eventually reached such a formal finding, Kessler noted, "it could have dramatic effects on our society."

"A strict application of these provisions could mean, ultimately, removal from the market of tobacco products containing nicotine at levels that cause or satisfy addiction," he said.

An FDA spokesman added: "The real bottom line is: We and the Congress need to address this issue and determine whether or not we are to regulate cigarettes. Is this in fact what the public will is?"

Kessler's comments came in a letter to an anti-smoking group, the Coalition on Smoking OR Health, which for years has urged the FDA to regulate cigarettes as a drug.

"We are surprised, but very pleased," said Scott D. Ballin, chairman of the coalition, composed of the American Heart Association, American Lung Association and American Cancer Society.

"The tobacco industry is in the drug business. We know it. People who are desperately fighting their addiction to nicotine know it. And now the FDA knows it," Ballin said.

The tobacco industry disagreed. "Cigarettes are not addictive," said Brennan Dawson, a spokeswoman for the Tobacco Institute.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of a House Energy and Commerce Committee's subcommittee on health, said unless Congress acts, "the FDA is going to have only one option: ban cigarettes," since the FDA cannot approve a drug that is known to be unsafe.

by CNB