President Bill Clinton sent a simple message to members of Congress last week: Get tougher on tobacco! In a long-awaited announcement, he listed his goals for a new tobacco law. At the very top of his list is a far-reaching plan to make it much harder for kids to start smoking.
"We have this unprecedented opportunity," the President announced from the White House Oval Office. "We have moved... to the brink of action on behalf of our children."
Building A Better Plan
This year has truly brought a historic opportunity for the nation to do something about its cigarette habit. In June, after nearly three months of discussions, tobacco companies agreed to
accept strict new limits on how they sell their products. They also agreed to take action to prevent young people from smoking. In another part of the deal, companies said they would pay more
than $300 billion to settle lawsuits by people who say smoking ruined their health or the health of someone they loved.
The agreement was reached with attorneys general--the top law officers--from nearly 40 states.
In his speech last week, President Clinton praised June's deal but said that it did not go far enough. For one thing, he wants a tougher penalty for tobacco companies if they do not reduce youth smoking by 60% over the next 10 years. The penalty, he said, should be a cigarette tax of up to $1.50 a pack. The federal cigarette tax is now 24¢ a pack. Said the President: "One of the surest ways of reducing youth smoking is to increase the price of cigarettes."
Clinton called for other key changes. He wants the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to have full control over the making and sale of cigarettes. The FDA controls the way all legal drugs, such as antibiotics or aspirin, are made and sold. Tobacco products contain an addictive drug called nicotine. Therefore, the President says, they should be governed by the FDA.
President Clinton was happy with certain parts of the June plan, especially those aimed at making smoking less attractive to kids. For example, tobacco ads would show no humans (goodbye, Marlboro Man) or cartoons (no more Joe Camels). Health-warning labels would have to be black and big enough to cover the top fourth of a cigarette package. Their messages would be more straightforward than ever: CIGARETTES ARE ADDICTIVE AND SMOKING CAN KILL YOU.
Cigarette billboards and other advertising in public places where kids can see it would disappear. The President thanked the attorneys general, tobacco giants and others who worked out the deal for agreeing to those important new rules.
"We're not rejecting what the attorneys general did," he said. "We're building on it."
Now It's Up To Congress
Not everyone was pleased with the President's speech. Democratic
Senator Wendell Ford of Kentucky, a big tobacco state, was among the Congress members who said Clinton's plan will simply slow down the process of passing a law. "This idea of continuing to add on to the agreement will cause it to fall of its own weight," he said.
Leaders of the tobacco industry felt they had gone as far as they could go in June. "We cannot support significant changes to that agreement," said a spokesman for Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation.
The President said it was important to "protect tobacco farmers and their communities." But he did not say how. He hopes to start working out this and other difficult issues in a meeting with members of Congress in early October.
The attorney general who led talks on the June deal says Congress can save thousands of lives by passing a tough tobacco bill quickly.
"Every day we delay, 3,000 more kids start smoking, and a thousand of them are going to die," said Mississippi attorney general Michael Moore. "If this really is a national public health crisis, then frankly, let's get this job done."