REGULATE CIGARETTES LIKE DRUGS -- U.S. DOCTORS 

    WASHINGTON (Reuter) - The American Medical Association Tuesday urged the
government to regulate cigarettes as an addictive drug, adding its weight to
the forces of reform in a controversy involving public health and personal
freedom. 
    ``Cigarettes are no different than syringes," Dr Randolph Smoak, a
spokesman for the influential U.S. doctors group, said at a news conference.
``They are a drug delivery device for nicotine. They should be regulated just
as we regulate morphine and heroin." 
    In another blow to the industry, West Virginia said it was becoming the
third state, after Florida and Mississippi, to sue tobacco companies to
recoup money spent on the health care of Medicaid patients and state retirees
who smoke. 
    State Attorney General Darrell McGraw Jr was preparing to file a
complaint, a spokeswoman said. 
    Smoak said the AMA is not calling for a ban on cigarettes -- a step some
see as inevitable if nicotine is officially classified as a drug -- because
so many Americans use them. 
    But he said regulation by the Food and Drug Administration, the federal
watchdog on such matters, would give the government more control over the
distribution of cigarettes and help keep them out of the hands of minors. 
    The FDA has been under increasing pressure to regulate tobacco as an
addictive drug since the Environmental Protection Agency released a report
early last year saying that second-hand tobacco smoke is responsible for the
deaths of 3,000 people in the United States each year. 
    ``We demand federal protection for non-smokers ... from the cancerous and
potentially deadly effects of passively inhaled tobacco smoke," Smoak said. 

Transmitted:  94-06-07 20:38:01 EDT