Clinton to Weigh Plan to Curb Teen Smoking : Tobacco: Proposal barring cigarette sales to minors would establish nicotine as an FDA-regulated drug. Foes say they will fight the move.

President Clinton has decided tentatively to extend federal regulation to tobacco, a move that could give him a powerful political issue in 1996 but likely will provoke litigation from the industry and an angry response from tobacco’s friends on Capitol Hill.

The plan under consideration at the White House would establish new federal rules intended to keep teen-agers from taking up smoking. It would ban cigarette sales to minors--including requiring proof of age for purchases, prohibiting vending machines in places frequented by young people, restricting advertising aimed at youths and barring the distribution of free samples through the mail and elsewhere, according to knowledgeable sources.

While these politically palatable first steps are targeted toward young people, the landmark decision for the first time would establish tobacco--more specifically, nicotine--as a regulated drug under the jurisdiction of a public health agency--the Food and Drug Administration--and could open the way for tougher curbs.

FDA officials explicitly have ruled out imposing a ban on tobacco, saying that it would not work and could inspire a black market.

Speaking to reporters Thursday, Clinton called teen-age smoking “a terrible problem,” and said: “We’ve got to do something about it. It’s going up when it ought to be going down.

“If you want to lower health care costs, increase life expectancy and broaden the quality of life for people, reducing teen-age smoking is one big way to start,” he said. “I’ve got some recommendations on it . . . and we’ll have a position on it shortly.”

Between 40 million and 50 million Americans smoke and numerous studies have shown that most of them began before the age of 19. In recent weeks, several new studies have been released indicating that smoking among teen-agers has jumped, particularly in the younger ages.

Smoking is regarded as the primary cause of lung cancer and has been shown to contribute strongly to emphysema and other respiratory ailments, heart disease and other cancers. Smoking-related illnesses result in more than 400,000 deaths annually, according to public health officials.

FDA Commissioner David A. Kessler has said publicly on numerous occasions that he regards smoking as “a pediatric disease” and that any public policy approach should center on preventing children from taking up the habit.

While laws prohibiting tobacco sales to minors exist in almost every state, they are largely ignored and rarely enforced.

However, a federal ban on such sales as proposed would give enforcement powers to the FDA, which would almost certainly regard the issue as a high priority. In violations involving drugs, foods and other products under its jurisdiction, the agency has numerous tools available, including criminal prosecution and product seizure.

Some addiction experts believe that, as with teen-age drinking, laws and other measures that restrict access and downplay promotional messages can have an impact on discouraging young people from smoking.

“You’re never going to prevent young people from trying cigarettes but you can erect barriers that slow the process,” said Dr. Jack Henningfield, chief of the clinical pharmacology research branch of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

But Walker Merryman, a vice president of the Tobacco Institute, promised “an inevitable court challenge” to any FDA attempt to regulate tobacco.

Congress also is expected to step into the fray. Conservative lawmakers already have begun to draft a series of FDA reforms and have made no secret of their dislike for the agency’s tobacco initiative.

“There will be a response,” said an aide to Rep. Thomas J. Bliley Jr. (R-Va.), chairman of the House Commerce Committee and former mayor of Richmond, home to a major Philip Morris facility. “No one wants children to smoke. But that’s not the FDA’s goal. Their goal is that they don’t want anyone to smoke. The bottom line is: People still want to smoke.”