for Bermuda to get tough on smoking for the protection of young people and for the protection of those people who do not smoke. If people want to smoke, that is their business but young people should be protected and non-smokers should be protected from the dangers of second hand smoke.

President Clinton says the American Government has a responsibility to discourage smoking among young people. It has been suggested that tobacco should be treated as addictive, which nicotine clearly is, and controlled by the US Food and Drug Administration.

The results of tobacco smoking are the same in Bermuda as they are in the United States. Surely the simplest way for us to go is to follow the United States rather than reinvent the wheel.

President Clinton faces a very strong tobacco lobby in Washington and the need to get votes in the tobacco producing states of the US south. A Minister of Health in Bermuda does not, of course, face those problems which should make the job of combatting tobacco much easier.

Regulation of tobacco in the United States has been supported by four major health groups, the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association, the American Cancer Society and the American Medical Association.

In addition, over 1200 other groups, many of them religious groups, have sent petitions to the White House asking for controls on tobacco. Most want controls on sales of tobacco to young people but they also want regulations placed on tobacco advertising.

Three things which are very helpful in controlling the sale of tobacco should be relatively easy to implement in Bermuda. One is to control the supply which can be done if cigarettes are only sold in stores licensed to sell liquor, not bars, liquor stores. Secondly, many young people obtain cigarettes from machines and these should be abolished. Thirdly, price can be a factor in discouraging young people and cigarettes should be about $8 a pack with the tax going toward the medical costs of diseases caused by smoking. That is fair because there is no reason non-smokers should pay for people who willingly make themselves very sick.

In addition, we have to take the glamour out of cigarettes by separating them from sport and any other event associated with young people. Promotions like the Camel Cup Match Most Valuable Player must go. These promotions pretend to be harmless support for sport when, in fact, they exploit sport in the most cynical way to make killer tobacco appear harmless.

Aside from controlling the sale of tobacco, Bermuda needs to catch up with other advanced countries and legislate smoking areas and bans on smoking in buildings used by the public.

The public has to be protected from a killer.