ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, November 19, 1996 TAG: 9611190091
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
Virginia Attorney General Jim Gilmore has joined the tobacco industry's lawsuit against Food and Drug Administration restrictions on cigarette sales and marketing.
In itself, that's OK. The Clinton administration's proposed use of the FDA to regulate tobacco without legislative authority and to greatly restrict cigarette advertising is, at the least, legally questionable.
The problem we have is with the argument Gilmore made, in the main, when he announced the filing of a friend-of-the-court brief.
Gilmore emphasized the threat not to the U.S. Constitution, but to Virginia's economy. At a news conference last week, he expressed special concern about "family farmers, and Richmond workers as well, who are going to be hurt by the Clinton administration's unlawful actions." The impact of FDA regulations (which haven't gone into effect yet) will "ripple through the state's economy," he warned, "especially within its agricultural, manufacturing and tourism sectors."
With the next gubernatorial election only a year away, it isn't surprising that the attorney general has added political economist - with emphasis on political - to his duties as the state government's chief legal representative. Even so, his pandering defense of the brief is problematic in at least three ways.
First, Gilmore undercuts his own case by making it seem more political than it needs to be. His bow to Virginia's tobacco interests - in a lawsuit also joined by North Carolina and Kentucky - feeds the perception that, on this issue, jobs and politics trump legal considerations. In fact, the priority accorded politics over constitutional law is precisely what's wrong with the content of the Clinton crusade: in particular, its circumvention of Congress and its First-Amendment-straining proposals to restrict and micromanage cigarette advertising on billboards and in magazines.
Second, Gilmore's economic analysis is too narrow. Indeed, while he's going up against Washington, 17 other states are suing cigarette makers to recoup public money spent on smoking-related illnesses. That money is spent in Virginia as well. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, smoking-related illnesses kill more than 9,000 Virginians every year . Direct medical costs tied to smoking in the commonwealth exceed $1 billion every year - not including costs of lost productivity.
Third, by emphasizing economic impact and, in effect, aligning Virginia's and the tobacco industry's interests, Gilmore implies that the state would oppose a successful anti-smoking crusade even if it were unencumbered by the legal problems burdening the Clinton strategy. The plain fact is that more than 80 percent of smokers begin the habit as minors. Thus, any policy that discourages under-age smoking will hurt cigarette-industry revenues.
It is telling, in this regard, that Gilmore's dispute with the feds skirts around Virginia's own shameful record on tobacco issues. He argued last week that the General Assembly is capable of taking action to curb youth smoking "without acquiescing to the illegal measures and usurpation of power by an unelected bureaucracy."
Since he's issuing political pronouncements as much as legal opinions, perhaps the presumptive GOP gubernatorial candidate can explain why the state has failed to enforce the law against cigarette sales to minors, and why it maintains the lowest tobacco tax in the nation - despite evidence that a higher cigarette tax is the most effective means of curbing adolescent smoking.
LENGTH: Medium: 64 linesby CNB