ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, August 27, 1996 TAG: 9608270073
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
PRESIDENT CLINTON'S effort to reduce smoking among America's youth makes an excellent crusade. Unfortunately, he's going about it the wrong way.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, 35 percent of U.S. teen-agers are now smoking, and the rate is rising. Every day, three thousand kids begin the habit; a third eventually will die because of it.
Yet, in spite of state laws banning sales to minors, most youngsters easily buy all the smokes they want. Clinton's crackdown, announced last week, may add teeth to state efforts by restricting vending-machine sales and requiring retailers to verify the age of buyers.
But his package features two killer flaws:
* It should have been enacted by Congress, not promulgated as Food and Drug Administration regulations.
* It shouldn't have included an almost certainly unconstitutional attempt to govern particulars of tobacco advertising.
Leaving aside the question of the FDA's legal authority, it's hard to see how this agency can reasonably regulate tobacco - without banning it.
Never mind Bob Dole's stated skepticism: Of course nicotine is addictive. Researchers have found that its addictive qualities work in the same way as do cocaine's and heroin's.
But the FDA doesn't oversee cocaine or heroin. To the drugs that it regulates, the agency applies two criteria: Is it safe? Is it effective? So where can the FDA's tobacco road end, except in a messed-up mission or a cigarette ban? The last thing our country needs is another experiment in prohibition.
Like unilaterally issued rules on sales to minors, the new restrictions on advertising also are an example of politically inspired executive overreach.
Ads appearing in publications heavily read by teen-agers, such as Sports Illustrated and Rolling Stone, will have to be black-and-white and without pictures. Billboard ads for cigarettes must be text-only and black-and-white, too, and can't be placed within 1,000 feet of schools.
Again leaving aside the FDA's legal authority - which doubtless will be questioned in lengthy, expensive lawsuits by the tobacco industry - it's hard to see how the government can so broadly dictate content and manner of commercial advertising without running up against the First Amendment.
Never mind tobacco companies' claim that they advertise only to encourage brand switching: Of course they're trying to hook younger smokers to ensure a future customer base. Teen-age smokers overwhelmingly use the three most-advertised brands, while adults disproportionately favor generic and low-nicotine, low-tar alternatives. A 1990 internal memo from R.J. Reynolds, obtained by congressional investigators, urged sales representatives to stock stores "in close proximity to colleges, high schools" with "premium items." In fact, 80 to 90 percent of smokers begin before age 21.
But the government's powers to regulate commercial speech are limited, especially when it comes to non-false advertising about lawful products.
The Clinton administration contends that, because cigarette sales to minors are illegal, it's OK to suppress tobacco ads that youngsters would likely see. But adults read Sports Illustrated and see billboards, too. The Supreme Court has ruled that government cannot reduce all speech to what is fit for children.
The answer to bad speech is to talk back to it, not gag it.
Bill Clinton deserves credit for being the first president to take on Big Tobacco. But if his crackdown were more about health and less about politics, it wouldn't have excluded one of the most effective weapons against adolescent smoking: a hefty increase in cigarette taxes.
LENGTH: Medium: 66 linesby CNB