ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, November 15, 1996 TAG: 9611150068
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: Associated Press
Virginia has joined sister tobacco states North Carolina and Kentucky in a legal challenge to block federal restrictions on the sales and marketing of tobacco.
Attorney General Jim Gilmore filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of a lawsuit major tobacco companies and their advertising allies filed against the Food and Drug Administration.
Gilmore, a Republican who plans to run for governor next year, said he was concerned that regulations the agency issued during the summer would harm Virginia's economy.
``The inevitable adverse impact will ripple through the state's economy especially within its agricultural, manufacturing and tourism sectors,'' Gilmore said at a news conference Wednesday.
Tobacco is the state's largest cash crop. Tobacco farmers earned nearly $175million last year in Virginia. Richmond is home to a Philip Morris USA cigarette plant, the world's largest.
Tobacco manufacturing yielded $5billion last year in Virginia and was 3.2 percent of the state's gross product. Only North Carolina, where tobacco's share of the gross state product was 6.5 percent, was higher.
Gilmore's action pits Virginia directly opposite 17 states that are suing tobacco companies to recoup public money spent on illnesses they allege are related to tobacco.
In Virginia, more than 9,000 residents died from smoking-related illnesses in 1990, and direct medical costs tied to smoking totaled $829million, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Gilmore's brief raises the same arguments as the tobacco industry did in its lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Greensboro, N.C. The industry asked the court to block FDA regulation of tobacco sales aimed at curbing underage smoking. The first hearing on the suit is scheduled for early next year.
Gilmore filed the brief Oct. 31, but did not disclose it until Wednesday.
In it, he argues that the General Assembly is capable of taking action to curb youth smoking ``without acquiescing to the illegal measures and usurpation of power by an unelected bureaucracy.''
Gilmore said Virginia would suffer from the loss of jobs, loss of tax base, reduced ability to finance schools and other government services, and endanger sporting and cultural events sponsored by brand-name tobacco products.
President Clinton in August endorsed federal regulation of tobacco as an addictive drug.
LENGTH: Medium: 54 linesby CNB