Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, August 11, 1995 TAG: 9508110064
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: COX NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
At a White House news conference, Clinton defended his decision to have the Food and Drug Administration issue a sweeping set of rules aimed at keeping cigarettes and chewing tobacco away from minors.
His goal, Clinton said, was to halve the number of young smokers.
``It is wrong as well as illegal to hook 1 million children a year on tobacco,'' Clinton said. He said about 3,000 teens start smoking every day and 1,000 of them eventually will die as a result.
Declaring nicotine an addictive drug would enable the FDA to use its authority to regulate medical devices to act against the cigarettes and smokeless tobacco that deliver nicotine to users. Cigars and pipes are not affected.
Clinton rejected the idea that strict limits on tobacco ads would curb the right of free speech.
``It is illegal for children to smoke cigarettes,'' Clinton noted. ``How, then, can it be legal for people to advertise to children to get them to smoke cigarettes?''
But six of the nation's largest tobacco companies quickly filed suit, insisting they do not now target minors in their ads or promotion campaigns. Advertising companies filed a separate lawsuit on freedom-of-speech grounds.
Rep. L.F. Payne, D-Nelson County, whose Southside district includes most of Virginia's tobacco growers, blasted the president's action as "a thinly-veiled attempt to put tobacco farmers out of business."
"I am concerned that it is the first step toward prohibition," Payne said, but he suggested that Clinton's action would not stand. "I don't expect Congress to stand idly by while the FDA tries to achieve through administrative fiat something Congress has refused to do.''
by CNB