GORE CRUSADES AGAINST TOBACCO

BOSTON -- Basking in cheers of approval yesterday, Vice President Al Gore
talked tough about the dangers of tobacco at a rally packed with children
and politicians.

But after he asked his young audience for ways to snuff out smoking, Gore
rejected the first idea tossed out.

"Why don't you close all the tobacco factories and farms?" asked
11-year-old Jose Negroni. After a pause, Gore answered: "You can't do that."

He said it would be akin to Prohibition, the government's failed effort to
enforce a ban on alcohol in the 1920s and '30s.

"There are so many adults who are addicted," Gore told a packed gymnasium
at Boston's McCormack Middle School. "If you tried to outlaw the whole
industry, you'd have a horrible law enforcement problem."

Nonetheless, Gore said strides are being made in the fight against the
tobacco industry and efforts to prevent young people from smoking. He said
Massachusetts' tobacco tax and anti-tobacco advertisements should serve as
a model for a national program.

"We're looking at the success you've had in this state and using your ideas
as a blueprint to see how we can get this kind of success in the country as
a whole," Gore said.

Since 1993, Massachusetts has raised millions of dollars from a 25-cent tax
on cigarettes to fund anti-tobacco education programs and advertisements to
get people to quit. The state is also suing the tobacco industry.

Gore used the rally -- one of several he has held around the country -- to
repeat the Clinton administration's call for a law that would reduce youth
smoking, give authority to the Food and Drug Administration to regulate
tobacco and also protect tobacco farmers. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.,
who attended the rally, has sponsored a bill that would impose a $1.50 tax
on cigarettes and raise between $17 billion and $20 billion dollars a year
to spend on child care and education.

Flanked by former Food and Drug Administration chief David Kessler and
Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, Gore told students that
the tobacco industry needs young people to sell their products to.

"The way they figured out how to replace those customers they're killing
off is to entice children to start smoking," he said.

Gore's motorcade was delayed for a few minutes on the way to the school
from Logan International Airport when two police motorcycles in his
entourage collided at the mouth of the Ted Williams Tunnel.

State police Sgt. Barbara Bennett said both officers suffered minor
injuries in the accident, which was caused in part by icy pavement.

Before the rally, state Sen. Lois Pines, D-Newton, recalled filing the
state's first anti-tobacco legislation after she was elected as a
representative in 1973. The measure failed.

"I've gotten a lot of people angry at me," she said. "But now it's 25 years
later, and I think I was right."

Gore was scheduled to attend Democratic fund-raisers in Boston last night
and this morning before flying to New York.