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

DATE: TUESDAY, April 18, 1995                   TAG: 9504180096
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: GEORGE W. ABBOTT
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TOBACCO

Kessler is the left-wing crusader who heads the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Appointed commissioner in 1992, he has led the FDA in an all-out assault on America's business community.

Now Kessler and his FDA cronies are attempting their biggest power grab ever: a total takeover of the U.S. tobacco industry.

Last February, Kessler began jockeying to assert regulatory control of tobacco. To justify this radical move, he cited anti-smoker claims that tobacco companies manipulate nicotine levels to "hook" smokers.

Such claims are baseless. In fact, over the past 30 years, tobacco firms have sharply reduced nicotine in cigarettes. And millions of allegedly "addicted" smokers have quit.

But Kessler never lets truth stand in the way of his regulatory crusades. So, last summer, he convened an eight-member advisory panel (stacked with anti-smokers) which duly gave him the verdict he wanted - that tobacco is "addictive" in the same way hard drugs are.

Armed with this absurd "finding," Kessler now wants to take over cigarette sales and marketing. If he gets away with it, the FDA could require prescriptions for cigarettes. Or it could allow cigarette sales only in government-run ABC stores. It could even outlaw cigarettes outright!

That could have a devastating effect on our region.

According to the accounting firm Price Waterhouse, more than 279,000 people work in tobacco growing, manufacture, wholesaling and retailing here in the Southeastern states. Another 403,720 work in related areas that rely on tobacco-sector spending.

Virtually all these fine people could wind up out of work if Kessler's FDA regulates tobacco right out of existence.

Last year, we beat back the Clinton administration's attempt to tax us into the poorhouse. We defeated a Big Government health-care plan that would have imposed a 75-cent-per-pack tax increase on cigarettes.

But now the social engineers are back with a new plan to put us out of business - the FDA power grab. And it's an even worse threat than last year's tax plan.

Right now, tobacco is the most heavily regulated commodity in America. Ask any tobacco grower about ridiculous government rules and red tape - from the Environmental Protection Agency, for instance, or from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The facts will make your blood boil.

Clearly, we don't need more tobacco regulation; we need less. If we hope to protect our way of life, we must stop David Kessler's war on tobacco. We voters spoke loud and clear on Nov. 8. We let Washington know we'll no longer bear the crushing weight of Big Government. Now it's time to make sure our lawmakers got that message. Contact them promptly and tell them to let us run our own lives! Please speak out now, while Congress is debating anti-regulatory measures. Your job - and our region's economic health - could depend on it.

George W. Abbott, of Darlington, S.C., is a tobacco warehouseman, farm-supply dealer and farmer.