The Economics Section - Page A4
CLINTON LOSES WAR ON DRUGS.
by Staff Journalists, The Daily Republican Newspaper
DECLARES VICTORY OVER NICOTINE!
WASHINGTON DESK - The American Medical Association (AMA) has not been able to determine whether or not nicotine is addictive or whether properties in the brain itself are responsible for addiction behavior in some people and not in others. It's a real problem in addiction research, because most substance abusers smoke, making it very difficult to sort out what effects are caused by smoking and what effects are caused by the abused substance.
AMA researchers, Alexander H. Glassman, MD, of Columbia University College of Physician and Surgeons, New York, NY, and George F. Koob, PhD, of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif, noted that brain functions in some people may contribute to performance-enhancing properties of cigarette smoking , such as increased alertness and cognitive performance.
Researchers have noted that cigarette smoking may boost dopamine levels in the brain and increase the likelihood that a smoker will become addicted to alcohol or other drugs of abuse. If this proves out, "it would give a neuro-pharmacological basis to the proposal that cigarettes are a 'gateway' drug."
President Clinton, however, has decided to go ahead on his own and declare nicotine an addictive drug. This way it can be brought under control of the Food and Drug Administration, the White House said Friday. He's using the government's inherent police power to go after teenagers' cigarette smoking. Teenagers can't vote.
Clinton decided to crack down on smoking Tuesday after the government reported a 105 % rise in teen drug use from 1992 to 1995. The surge, Republicans noted, occurred on the watch of Mr. Clinton, who drastically cut the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
He has now given the Food and Drug Administration the police powers of the Clinton administration to regulate tobacco and crack down on teen-age smoking.
Some of Clinton's pending rules are:
- Cigarette companies will be barred from placing billboard advertising with characters such as Joe Camel within 1,000 feet of any school or playground. In his plan last year, Mr. Clinton also proposed forbidding tobacco-product advertising at sports events, on T-shirts and in magazines likely to be read by teen-agers. Advertising groups have said those rules infringe on free speech.
- Vending-machine sales will be banned, and mail-order sales will be eliminated.
- Age verification will be required of cigarette buyers.
- Special promotions will be barred, especially free samples of cigarettes or other tobacco products, and special self-service promotions on store counters will be forbidden.
- Tobacco sponsorship of sport ing or entertainment events will be prohibited.
New Efforts to Keep Adolescents Tobacco-Free was already well under-way.
Efforts to discourage young people from taking up smoking are about to get a major impetus. A new organization, the Center for Tobacco-Free Kids, is being formed to focus its energies on changing the social environment and to attempt to influence public policies regarding the use of tobacco by teens.
The Center will assist state and local communities engaged in tobacco control efforts, will enable them to do a more effective job in advocating for change than they might otherwise be able to do, and will develop an outreach program to broaden and serve as a focus for the millions of Americans concerned about tobacco control.
It will be concentrating on teenage smoking. The Center staff argues, if teenagers can be dissuaded from taking up the habit, the result will be a further down turn in tobacco use in the general population. Over the past three decades smoking prevalence in the US population at large has fallen from around 40% to a little over 25%.
The problem of teenage smoking is formidable. In the United States, three million adolescents smoke cigarettes and another 1 million chew tobacco - and the numbers are going up, according to a survey by the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research in Ann Arbor. Among both 8th and l0th grade students, the proportion of those who reported smoking in the 30 days prior to the survey has increased by one third since 1991. Some 19% of the 8th graders and 28% of the 10th graders now report such use. Since 1992, the smoking rate has risen by more than one fifth among high school seniors, with one in three (33.3%) now saying they smoked in the 30 days prior to the survey.
Although selling tobacco to those under 18 years of age is forbidden in every state, enforcement is lax and readily circumvented. However, moves are afoot at the federal level to toughen the efforts aimed at keeping tobacco out of the hands of minors.
One is implementation this year of the Synar rule, named after the late Rep Mike Synar (D, Okla). This requires that every state develop an effective program prohibiting the sale of tobacco to minors and requiring that strong enforcement efforts be put in place, including an annual report on the efficacy of these programs to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. If states fail to comply, they will forfeit their grants from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration.
Aother has been the move by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with the same goals: Regulate access to tobacco and, as a way of limiting its appeal, cut tobacco advertising and promotions.
The FDA's proposal, issued last August, is being protested by a sizable number of members of Congress (32 senators and 124 representatives) on the grounds that strict enforcement of the present laws is the most effective way to prevent minors from using or purchasing tobacco. As the members rather huffily phrased their protest to FDA director David Kessler, MD: "If additional measures are needed, Congress, not the FDA, will make the decision."
Hot on the heels of the congressional letter came two reports, one from Common Cause and the other from the US Public Interest Research Group. Both charged the tobacco industry with flooding Congress with money to influence legislators to oppose the FDA's proposal. Myers held a press conference in Washington, DC, to announce the findings. Last year, tobacco companies gave almost $4 million dollars to Congress. This was "more than twice the amount the industry contributed to Congress in 1993, the previous off-election year," Myers said.
Reflecting the changing political picture, most of the money spent by tobacco interests is now going to Republicans instead of being evenly split between the parties. In 1993, the tobacco industry donated $477,022 to Democratic candidates and $422,221 to Republicans. But in 1995, the Republicans garnered $841,120 from tobacco political action committees compared with only $281 000 to Democrats, Myers noted. A further $2,793,496 was donated in so-called soft money, funds given to party organizations rather than specific candidates.
The reason for the switch to Republicans is that philosophically the party is strongly against government regulation. But it also reflects the changes in political alignments. Many of the Democrats from the tobacco-growing states of the South have been replaced by Republicans.
Another important factor is that the tobacco industry is facing unprecedented challenges. Apart from the proposal to regulate tobacco sales to minors, the FDA could also attempt to regulate the nicotine content of tobacco with the hope that this might help to reduce dependency. Also, seven states are suing tobacco companies to recover their costs of treating patients through Medicaid for smoking-related illnesses. They are Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Texas, and West Virginia.
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