Clinton: Pricey Smokes Would Cut Teen Use Plan Seeks To Boost Tax $1.10 A Pack; Also Restrictions On Ads, Displays

President Clinton released a report Friday predicting that his plan to boost the cigarette tax by $1.10 a pack over the next five years, combined with other initiatives, could slash the number of teenage smokers by as much as 46 percent.

In remarks before the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, Clinton urged medical researchers to continue seeking cures for cancer while policy-makers do their part with legislation to curb tobacco use.

Clinton said his proposed price increases on cigarettes, coupled with restrictions on advertising and sales displays, would help keep teenagers from starting to smoke and prompt many of them to quit.

The analysis by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms found that such policy changes would deter about 2.5 million young people from smoking over the next five years and reduce teenage smoking by 39 percent to 46 percent by 2003, according to administration officials.

“Let me tell you what that means in real people,” Clinton said of the expected drop. “That means if we act this year … we can stop almost 3 million young people from smoking and save almost 1 million lives.”

Health advocates applauded the president’s remarks but urged him to make cigarettes even pricier.

“We shouldn’t stop at $1.10,” said Paul Billings, deputy director of relations for the American Lung Association. “We should go to a $2.00-per-pack increase, and we shouldn’t stop at that - but have regular, stiff, significant increases in the per-pack tax every year thereafter.”

“Today’s 8-year-olds aren’t going to be as impacted by the ($1.10) price increase four years from now when they are 12 years old and starting to smoke,” Billings said.

A tobacco industry representative said cigarette companies have no quarrel with the new report but consider the proposed settlement between the industry and states better than a higher cigarette tax.

Industry spokesman Scott Williams said higher cigarette prices will work only when combined with some of the voluntary proposals advanced by the tobacco industry - such as elimination of outdoor advertising.

In exchange for the ban on such ads, tobacco executives are asking Congress to change the law to prohibit future class-action lawsuits and cap the annual damages that the industry would have to pay to plaintiffs.