HELP TOBACCO FIRMS CURB CRAVING FOR CUSTOMERS

Tobacco company executives are hopelessly addicted to finding new victims,
or customers, for their products.

These corporate leaders need a patch, a gum, hypnosis -- anything that
might free them from their compulsion to hook others on nicotine. Until
they resolve to liberate themselves, however, the rest of us must limit the
ill effects of their behavior.

Even in the first few weeks of this new year, fresh evidence has emerged of
the tobacco industry's all-consuming need for new customers. Papers
released from a lawsuit in California provide more evidence that tobacco
companies may have targeted minors with advertising. The companies insist
that the papers are misleading and were released out of proper context.
Even viewed through the heaviest of rose tinting, the documents show clear
corporate concern with catching future customers shortly after their 18th
birthdays -- if not sooner.

With the courts and various officials bearing down their necks, however,
the tobacco companies recognize that they can't continue business as usual
in this country. So, they are hoping to export their way out of a jam.

As a story in Sunday's paper reported, our tobacco companies are wining and
dining foreign journalists in an attempt to influence coverage of
smoking-related issues. For instance, the companies hope to head off the
type of indoor smoking restrictions that now protect Americans from a

great deal of second-hand exposure to tobacco products. Meanwhile, the
companies are investing heavily in marketing abroad.

But there's nothing surprising about the tobacco companies' pursuing
customers on distant continents. After all, the firms' customers here are
known for leaving home late on stormy nights to make a desperate run to a
convenience store. When you're hooked, you're hooked, whether your
addiction is tobacco or new customers. The success of the companies'
efforts to create new markets abroad probably will and should largely
depend on the actions of foreign health authorities.

Here at home, there is plenty to involve authorities at every level in
curbing the industry's remorseless appetite for customers. State officials
here and elsewhere have played highly constructive roles in suing the firms
for health damages to residents. Drawing upon a proposed settlement in a
number of state cases, Congress and the Clinton administration now must
come up with a plan for larger restrictions. Increasingly, as more
information about tobacco companies' practices emerge, the settlement terms
are looking like only a starting point for stronger controls.

At the local level, too, there remains work to be done. With a clearer
understanding of the tobacco firms' quest for customers, the Snohomish
Health District should revisit its discussion of outdoor advertising
controls. Some health board members have suggested that under-age smokers
should face fines for buying cigarettes. The suggestion has some merit. But
the larger issue is the behavior of the adults who target them as customers
with youth-oriented advertising.

Those addicts must be controlled, everywhere they seek their victims.