will follow the lead being set by some American states. Those states are taking tough measures against the tobacco companies. The measures are designed to protect people from misleading claims made by the tobacco merchants and to gain compensation from suppliers for the huge health costs associated with tobacco smoking.

The basic theory is that if people want to smoke they may smoke but they have no right to endanger the health of others or to run up public health care costs with diseases associated with smoking.

For years now Bermuda has lagged behind in moving against public use of tobacco, perhaps because various powerful Cabinet ministers were smokers.

Government must accept the responsibility for that in 1996 and quickly follow the leads in the United States and Canada against tobacco. It really has been folly and the worst possible example to young people to have a number of Health Ministers who smoked.

Bermuda now has a new (non-smoking) Minister of Health. That Minister has the task of tackling the problems of smoking in much the same way that President Bill Clinton has spoken up in the US. President Clinton says the American Government has a responsibility to discourage smoking, especially among young people.

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.

Over 1,200 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. Where are the protests in Bermuda from the cancer charities, the churches, the youth groups and the drugs awareness committees? Nothing political has happened or will happen in Bermuda because politicians quake at anything remotely controversial. Therefore what Bermuda probably needs is a major law suit to set the pace for changes. If the politicians will not move, then people may have to use the courts to set the standards.

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 not readily available and are only sold in stores licensed to sell liquor; not bars, liquor stores. In this way there can be age control as there is for liquor.

Secondly, many young people obtain cigarettes from machines where there is no adult control and these should be abolished.

Thirdly, price can be a factor in discouraging people and the next Budget should be used to make cigarettes about $8 a pack with the extra 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. As an example, the Camel Cup Match Most Valuable Player award must go. These promotions pretend to be support for sport when, in fact, they exploit sport in the most cynical way to make killer tobacco appear acceptable. The ministry responsible for youth and sport needs to enunciate a policy on both tobacco and alcohol in sports promotion.

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 restaurants and other buildings used by the public. The thrust should be the protection of the non-smoker.

Government knows that the public has to be protected from a killer.