HEALTH : Doctors Offer a Cure for Bad Taste Liquor Ads : Washington state group proposes to end advertising that appeals to young or promotes achievement.

More Doctors Smoke Camels than any other Cigarette . . . . After all, a doctor smokes for pleasure too. The pleasing mildness of a Camel can be just as welcome to his throat as to yours.

The year was 1946. The advertisement arrived in the mailboxes of Americans on the back cover of their Sept. 2 Life magazine. A kindly doctor was pictured taking the pulse of an older woman, a woman not unlike everyone’s mother.

In the 45 years since, of course, American attitudes, knowledge and laws about smoking have changed so profoundly as to render the Camel advertisement a yellowed, quaint reminder of times bygone.

Insofar as is recorded, doctors did not rebel in the face of such advertising back then.

But they are rising up today, here in Washington state, as if to make up for it.

Today, Washington doctors want a new role in advertising, not as passive shills but as protectors of the public good. Or, as self-righteous censors, depending on your view.

And their first target is not smoking, but drinking. Specifically, the leadership of the Washington State Medical Assn. has become the champion of a far-reaching proposal to outlaw liquor ads that appeal to the young, or to other consumers who might succumb to the notion that drinking can lead to achievement.

Among things doctors want outlawed in beer and liquor advertising: Spuds Mackenzie, sex appeal and, in particular, scantily clad women, dangerous activities like acrobatic skiing, rock stars and rock music, toys, endorsements by sports figures and other celebrities and anything that promotes faster drinking, such as the slogan “less filling.”

In short, says the association, “alcohol advertisements should be in good taste, modest and dignified.”

Before the month is out, Washington state’s three-member Liquor Control Board is scheduled to vote on whether to turn the medical association proposal into a regulation with the force of law. It would declare that any liquor purveyor who advertised outside the bounds set by the regulation could lose its license to sell in Washington state.

Such a step would make Washington the first in the nation audacious enough to claim control over the broad content of advertising--print, broadcast, all of it down to the bar coasters and those little cardboard placards on restaurant tables. And along the way, Washington would be sure to bring on a constitutional challenge over freedom of speech and interstate commerce.

Abe Bergman, a pediatrician at a Seattle trauma center, says the beer industry, in particular, has brought this tough step on itself when it stopped advertising the quality of products and began battling over images.

“You have scantily clad women jumping out of a big truck handing beer to some big studs laying on the beach. You don’t have to be a psychologist to understand what they are trying to say,” Bergman says.

If the beer industry would just devise a code like the wine industry and take some of the cleavage, muscle and yippie out of its ads, everything would be all right, Bergman says. But that is the point. “The wine industry is speaking to a more mature drinker. . . . The beer industry is selling its product to young people,” Bergman complains.

Look at it as a health issue, the medical association asks. According to its statistics, alcohol-related traffic accidents are the No. 1 killer of Washington residents aged 16 to 24. How can doctors not face up to such a threat to the health of young people?

The advertising, liquor, newspaper, magazine and broadcast industries testified against the regulation during a one-day hearing. In addition to basic freedom of speech and commerce issues, opponents challenged the idea of entrusting government to decide which ads “irresponsibly” appeal to young drinkers and which do not?

Bull terrier Spuds Mackenzie illustrates the point.

The association believes the dog is a blatant appeal to young people and, therefore, would be outlawed in Washington state if the regulation were approved. A staffer at the Liquor Control Board, however, said he was by no means sure the dog would be considered an offender--that decision would be up to the board.

Right now, the board must decide the larger question if it wants to take on those kinds of questions and battle powerful and politically well-connected industries. Insiders say the outcome is going to be a nail-biter, with one board member leaning in favor of the regulation, one against and the third noncommittal.