Clinton Criticizes Dole’s Tobacco Stance

Countering Bob Dole’s criticism of the idea that tobacco should be regulated as a drug, President Clinton on Saturday said the Republican presidential hopeful contradicted scientific fact when he contended that tobacco is not necessarily addictive.

The president, in his regular Saturday radio address, also challenged distillers to continue to honor a long-standing but voluntary ban against broadcast advertising for hard liquor. He called alcohol and tobacco “two of the biggest dangers to your children.”

Neither Dole nor Seagram Co.--the Montreal-based firm that last week announced its intentions to defy the ban on TV advertising in order to promote its Crown Royal whiskey--was mentioned by name during the address.

But Clinton pointedly referred to Dole’s remarks last week, made during a fund-raiser in the heart of tobacco country, that smoking is not always addictive.

The president noted that Dr. C. Everett Koop, surgeon general under President Reagan, concluded nearly a decade ago that cigarettes are highly addictive. And he said 130 of the nation’s top doctors will meet soon to consider “how people can break free from tobacco addiction, not whether it’s addictive.”

”. . . When political leaders parrot the tobacco company line, saying cigarettes are not necessarily addictive, and [they] oppose our efforts to keep tobacco away from our children, they continue to cater to powerful interests, but they’re not standing up for parents and children,” Clinton said.

“On the eve of this Father’s Day, I say to the tobacco industry: Support our efforts to keep tobacco away from our kids,” Clinton added. “And I say to others in public life: Stop fighting those efforts; you should be supporting them too.”

Clinton said he was disappointed that a distillery had decided to begin advertising whiskey on television. Although the three major TV networks have a policy of refusing to air such ads, an independent NBC affiliate in Corpus Christi, Texas, has accepted Seagram’s ads.

“I was disappointed this week when a major company announced it would break the ban and put liquor ads on TV, exposing our children to liquor before they know how to handle it or can legally do so,” Clinton said. “After voluntarily staying away from this for 50 years, being good corporate citizens, companies are now considering changing plans,” he said.

In political terms, the president’s remarks sought to position him as a defender of the nation’s beleaguered parents and children at a time when Dole and other Republicans have attempted to focus the presidential campaign on personal and societal values.

The Democratic nominee for president has not carried a majority of married voters since 1964, according to post-election surveys by the University of Michigan’s Center of Political Studies. Clinton campaign officials say targeting tobacco and liquor fits well into Clinton’s reelection campaign strategy to raise a host of so-called family values issues, ranging from school uniforms to electronic devices in TV sets to help parents block objectionable programming.

“We think these are going to be important issues in the campaign because parents are very concerned about things like tobacco companies targeting their kids,” said Joe Lockhart, national press secretary of the Clinton-Gore campaign.

“The president is standing up for families, and Dole is simply standing up for the tobacco industry,” Lockhart said, adding that Dole has accepted $385,000 in campaign contributions from tobacco industry interests and flew 38 times aboard tobacco industry corporate jets.

Dole dismissed those claims when the issue first arose last week, saying: “Am I supposed to tell someone in a legal business they can’t contribute to my campaign?”

The latest sparks over tobacco erupted last Thursday when Dole, speaking from the deck of the Belle of Louisville as it steamed down the Ohio River in Kentucky, said: “To some people, smoking is addictive. To others, they can take it or leave it. Most people don’t smoke at all. I hope children never start.”

Dole, who resigned from the Senate last Tuesday to run for president, has said he supports efforts to keep children from smoking. But he said he believes that the federal government should not further extend its regulatory reach into the tobacco industry.

“We know it’s not good for kids,” Dole said. “But a lot of other things aren’t good. . . . Some would say milk’s not good.”

Responding to Clinton’s address, Dole campaign spokeswoman Christina Martin said both Dole and the president “and most of America agree that our kids should not use tobacco. Bill Clinton is simply trying to hide behind a tobacco smoke screen the fact that he wants to raise taxes and over-regulate anything that walks, talks or exists on American soil.”

“Bob Dole has always opposed the idea of teen smoking and so voted to enact a number of measures being used to discourage smoking activities. He’s so serious that Bob Dole has even said he would consider addressing this issue on his first day in office,” Martin said.

Times wire services contributed to this story.