THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Wednesday, July 20, 1994               TAG: 9407200429
SECTION: LOCAL                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 
DATELINE: RICHMOND                           LENGTH: Short :   48 lines

COLEMAN SAYS ROBB IS ``TURNING HIS BACK'' ON VIRGINIA'S TOBACCO INDUSTRY

Democratic U.S. Sen. Charles S. Robb took some heat from one of his three challengers Tuesday for touching a third rail of Virginia politics - tobacco.

Independent Marshall Coleman said Robb turned his back on Virginia's No. 1 cash crop when he said in a debate Saturday that he was willing to consider allowing the federal Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco as an addictive drug.

``That was the sound of Chuck Robb turning his back all the way on the Virginia economy,'' Coleman told reporters outside a closed Philip Morris tobacco processing plant. The plant closed last year because it was antiquated, and its workers were given other jobs, a company spokeswoman said.

Coleman also accused Robb of supporting an increase in the tobacco tax to fund health care reform.

Robb said Coleman's charges were wrong.

``Marshall needs to do his homework,'' Robb said in a statement issued by his Senate office. ``I have consistently opposed financing health care reform through a tobacco tax.''

He said Coleman distorted his remarks on FDA regulation of tobacco. ``The question at the debate asked the candidates to assume that tobacco had been declared a drug. That case has not been made, and there is no evidence that it can be made,'' Robb said.

At the debate before the Virginia Bar Association, Robb said, ``I am willing to consider putting it under FDA if a case can be made. I haven't studied that aspect of the situation.''

All four candidates have said they would oppose higher taxes on tobacco, and the three challengers said they would oppose regulating it as a drug.

Robb attended Senate sessions in Washington on Tuesday, while independent L. Douglas Wilder campaigned in Charlottesville. Republican Oliver North had no public events.

On a Charlottesville radio call-in show, Wilder said he opposed any invasion of Haiti. The former Democratic governor said the military leaders of Haiti pose no threat to this country.

KEYWORDS: U.S. SENATE RACE VIRGINIA CANDIDATES ISSUES by CNB