Clinton to label nicotine addictive, start tobacco rules

WASHINGTON President Clinton is about to reverse centuries ofU.S. tobacco policy, declaring nicotine an addictive drug in hopes ofpreventing about 500,000 teenagers a year from smoking.

The nicotine in tobacco still will be less restricted than anyother drug the government has labeled addictive. And even if theFood and Drug Administration's ambitious regulations work, it wouldbe years before the nation saw a drop in the 400,000 annual deathsattributed to tobacco.

Still, "tobacco has been exempt from safety regulations thatevery other consumer product in the country has been subjected to,"said University of California Professor Stanton Glantz, author of TheCigarette Papers. "They're basically going from a privileged statusto being treated more like everything else."

Clinton is expected today to declare nicotine an addictive drugand unleash the FDA to regulate cigarettes and smokeless tobacco asdevices that deliver nicotine. Anti-tobacco leaders have beeninvited to an afternoon ceremony in the Rose Garden.

The FDA aims, within seven years, to cut in half teenagesmoking, through far-reaching restrictions designed to snufftobacco's appeal as sexy and fun, as well as its availability tominors.

Teen smoking already is illegal, yet 3,000 teens a day pick upthe habit and 90 percent of all smokers start before age 18.

The tobacco industry has sued to block the FDA rules, insistingit doesn't encourage teens to smoke and that nicotine is notaddictive.

"It's illegal jurisdiction," declared the Tobacco Institute'sBrennan Dawson.

Every other drug the government labels as addictive is eitherbanned or available by prescription only, steps the FDA has insistedit won't take with tobacco. And the government still promotestobacco through a taxpayer-funded agricultural price support program.

Still, FDA regulation reverses centuries of tobacco policy.This leaf was smoked long before white settlers ever arrived andquickly became the colonial currency that helped finance the AmericanRevolution.

But tobacco today is no longer the leaf smoked straight from thefield. It's a mix of tobacco and chemicals such as ammonia thatcigarette makers say are added only for taste but that internalindustry research shows can boost nicotine's addictive effects.

Those changes - and once-secret industry documents showingtobacco executives knew before doctors did of tobacco's risks andprivately acknowledged its addictiveness - gave the FDA ammunitionbecause federal law says the agency must oversee any drug "intendedto affect the structure or function" of the body.

"This is a very important turning of the screw . . . where thefederal government actually begins to interfere with the otherwiseunfettered market decisions of consumers," said University of NorthCarolina tobacco historian Harry Watson.

Officials say the final rules largely mirror the FDA's 1995proposed crackdown, which would mean the advertising industry couldfeel the biggest financial pinch: No more three-dimensional Joe Camel ads offering free concerttickets in magazines such as Rolling Stone that are read bythousands of teenagers. The only cigarette ads that could appear insuch magazines would be black-and-white, text-only. No more cigarette billboards within 1,000 feet of schools - orpictures on any billboards, like the Marlboro Man.

Those bans would cut at least $600 million from the tobaccoindustry's $6 billion annual marketing tab, said attorney JohnFithian of the Freedom to Advertise Coalition, advertising groupsthat have sued to block the FDA.