Filthy Habit

gnore all the rhetoric. The tobacco tax fight in which Congress is embroiled has little to do with the health of teen-agers. The issue really represents a political "two-fer" for President Bill Clinton and fellow Democrats: The opportunity both to generate $500 billion with which to expand government and demonize reluctant Republicans as tools of the tobacco lobby. On both counts, they deserve defeat.

    Fortunately, prospects already are dimming for passage of a "bipartisan" agreement to hike cigarette taxes by $1.10 per pack over five years, curtail advertising and empower the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to control tobacco products. Republicans are becoming more skittish by the day about handing a half-trillion-dollar victory to the Clinton administration when there is no assurance of how the revenue would be spent or whether prevention programs actually work.

    House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate Assistant Majority Leader Don Nickles, R-Okla., this week instead proposed twinning smoking prevention with anti-drug efforts. As Nickles told the Associated Press: "You don't have to have hundreds of billions of dollars switch hands to try to combat youth tobacco and drug use."

    Indeed, there is evidence aplenty that the billions of dollars already spent on smoking prevention have been largely wasted. Teens' use of tobacco products rose nearly 10 percent between 1991 and 1997, a period of aggressive anti-smoking efforts.

    All 50 states and U.S. territories already prohibit the sale of tobacco products to anyone under age 18. New FDA rules also require retailers to card customers who appear to be under the age of 27. And a sizable chunk of the $500 million-plus that Michigan collects in tobacco taxes funds prevention programs.

    Meanwhile, research suggests that the prevention methods in vogue may actually attract teens to indulge in the weed. As millions of parents well know, nothing piques adolescent interest like adult disapproval. Shrinks call it "psychological reactance." So for all the money spent, public health officials know very little about how to prevent teens from smoking.

    But the Clinton administration, with some GOP collaboration, is playing on public antipathy toward smoking to gin up revenue to bankroll new social programs. The draft legislation favored by Democrats is silent on spending, which allows the president and his minions to further indulge in their own filthy habits.

    And Republicans who balk are in for it. This was emphasized by White House spokesman Mike McCurry on Wednesday, when he warned opponents that "(W)e intend to raise the cost of them being in that position. ..."

    Most Americans may not like smoking, but that doesn't necessarily mean they favor a big-spending nanny state. Yet if President Clinton and his supporters are allowed to succeed with this tobacco pact, the same extortionist tactics will undoubtedly be applied to other "sins." Just imagine how much government could "do" by slapping a health tax on Big Macs and Budweiser.