Tobacco Documents Online

Message for Woodwardi Ellis ,... mycBW ... From: Colby, Dolly Ditr. Fri, Aug 41, 1995 6:17 PM Sub/ecl: Teen Smoking/McCurry/Clintan. To: Firestone, Marc; Han, Yic; 8rane, Caroline; Lenzi, Jack; Moore, Mary Bllen; NicoLii, David; Parrish, Steve; Pellom, Wendy; Prager, Greg; SorrelLs, Jbhnp Woodward, RI1:is; York, Milke Ca Coughlin, Mary; Daragan,Aaren; HaviLand,. Ingrid~ &ilcull'en, Rarea;Kiley, Debbiet Laufer, David; Maher., Jayne; Martin, Maria; McCormick, Brendan; Merlo, Ellen; Eainey, Aarenp Wilson, Christine Clinton-Smoking,7g0 CLinton Caught Between Competing. Ihterests an- Teen Smoking general news wire By NhHCY BBLSAC= Associated Press' Wrikeri= WASBINGDOH (8P} Caught ih a tug-of-war between competing interests, Presiden,. Clinton must ballance huge health and political implications as he decides how. far government shoulH go to deter smoking amongyaung people. Inside~.the White House and out, powerful health, tobacco and political.interests are battling to sway Clinton their way. Pressed Thursday an the direction of his thinking,. Clinton promised an announcament soon on action of one sort or another, saying anoking amanglyouth " should bediainished and the government has responsibility there." "we'vegot to do sometting about it, "' he said. "It•s going up when it ought to be goingi down." Clinton's Iikely course has become the subject of intense and conflicting speculation. One day tha-conventional wisdonhas him leasing toward regulatiog nicotine! as!a drug, the next he is favoring, a, comproaise approach.under which tobacco campanies would put up money for a massive craclodown against.teen smoking. On Thursday alone, one administration ofEicial said Clinton was

leaning toward a regulatory approach and another insisted that was "wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, " that the decision was still very much up in the air. Some reports are dismissed as trial balloons floated by competing camps trying to advance their point of view in the White House. So sensitive is the issue that aides are reluctant even to identify which White House staff members fall into which camp. Outside interests hesitate to publicly identify their "heroes or villains " at the White House to spare them intensified lobbying. No matter what he does, Clinton is sure to disappoint allies. " It's a divisive issue and we've got friends who feel strongly on both sides of the issue, " shrugged White House press secretary Mike McCurry. More than 100 medical, religious and children's groups sent Clinton a letter Thursday urging him to authorize Food and Drug Administration regulation of nicotine to fight teen smoking. Approaches under discussion include banning cigarette vending machines from places frequented by youths, limiting the types of advertising tobacco companies can use and requiring proof of age for the sale of cigarettes. The tobacco industry a potent political force in the South is fiercely opposed to FDA regulation, seeing it as the first step toward broader government controls on tobacco. It has vowed to fight any move toward increased regulation in court. " If the FDA gets involved, that means a ban on the product, " said Walker Merryman, vice president of the Tobacco Institute. North Carolina Gov. Jim Hunt, whose state leads the nation in tobacco production, said Thursday that he would do everything he could " to protect North Carolina's tobacco industry and tobacco farmers from being wiped out by overzealous government regulators. " Hunt has met recently with Clinton and White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta to urge them to reject FDA regulation of tobacco. "Washington's intentions are good, but its methods are misguided, " Hunt said in a prepared statement. "We do need to curb teen smoking. But we need to do it without another layer of government regulation. " The debate is playing out against the unavoidable backdrop of presidential politics: Heading into 1996, Clinton can ill afford to alienate southerners whose economies are tied to tobacco. Former President Jimmy Carter suggested Thursday that he knows just what Clinton is going through, recalling " the unique pressure that can be brought to bear on a president by the tobacco industry. " " During my administration, the industry used its power and persuasion to argue, just as it is doing today, that it could be trusted not to market cigarettes to children, " Carter wrote in an editorial in USA Today. " Like many public officials at that time, I believed the industry could be persuaded to behave responsibly. ... Today I know better. " Carter was among the medical and religious groups appealing to Clinton to authorize FDA regulation, pairing him with such unlikely allies as Pat Robertson of the Christian Broadcasting Network. Trying to reassure Clinton about the political implications of his decision, anti-smoking activists also released a survey that found 83 percent of registered voters think the FDA should regulate tobacco products just as it does drugs and food. Page 47

Page 48 I Even in tobacao-growingstates, BD percent favored FDAregulation, aacordingto the survey by New York-based Global Strategy Group. The poll, commissioned by the American. Heart and Lung Associations and the American Cancer Society, surveyed 8D0 registered voters nationvide last week. Theaargin of error was 3.4 percentage points. Ap-DS-08-03-95 1830%DT copyright(c), 1995 The Associated Press REceived by MeesBDGS/LAN: 8/3/95 6:32 Bb