TEEN SMOKING WAR LACKS LEADERSHIP, TROOPS TO DO JOB

There are so many thing wrong with President Clinton's newly declared war on teen-age smoking that it is difficult to know where to begin.

But first let it be said that smoking in general has been linked by many respected medical groups to serious health problems, and when youths take up the smoking habit they are more likely to be among those whose health is adversely affected later in life.

The problem with the much-ballyhooed campaign to eradicate teen-age smoking is that it represents everything that is wrong with government today:

-- The executive branch of government, without any review from Congress, is imposing a set of tough-sounding rules aimed at keeping cigarettes away from young smokers.

-- The power of states to regulate cigarette smoking has been ignored. The fact is that all 50 states already have laws that prohibit the sales of tobacco products to minors.

-- The White House appears to be using the teen-age smoking issue as a political device to get the front-page newspaper headlines and the attention of the evening television news. It is no accident that President Clinton's re-election bid is gearing up to full power.

-- The Food and Drug Administration, faced with a hard-nosed review from the Republican-controlled Congress, needs a riveting issue to support its stand on the need for strong government regulatory powers.

-- Once again, the breakdown of the family structure has been completely ignored. The Clinton plan places no responsibility on parents to teach their children about good health or impose strict and enforceable rules that would prevent any child from puffing on a cigarette.

It is the same old and tiresome story: If the problem can't be fixed by families or communities or states, let Uncle Sam step in. Almost without fail, the federal government's attempts to restructure society become huge failures. The Clinton war on teen-age smoking is likely to make waves for a short while. Millions of dollars will be spent in a flurry of regulatory activity. And then someone will notice that teen-age smoking is still a big problem, which will cause a lot of hand-wringing over why the government can't solve so important a problem.

Meanwhile, businesses affected by the president's broad attack on teen-age smoking aren't passively accepting the call to war. A coalition of tobacco advertisers and ad agencies have sued the FDA claiming the agency is taking too wide of a swipe. Five tobacco companies also have sued the FDA saying the government is exceeding its authority.

Big questions are raised by the war on teen-age smoking, and if anything good can come of this, it will be an attempt to answer those questions. For example, why don't the existing state laws prevent teen-agers from smoking? What enforcement effort would it take to put a stop to the sale and use of tobacco products by every American teen-ager?

These questions, and many more like them, have prompted comparisons with other efforts to regulate teen-age habits. If the multi-billion-dollar war on drugs can't keep marijuana out of the hands of teen-agers, who seriously thinks the federal government can do a better job with tobacco?

Still others will wonder why the government is targeting teen-agers instead of targeting the tobacco industry. After all, if the White House really believes smoking is so bad, why not ban all tobacco sales and production? President Clinton pretty much answered that question when he said he wouldn't set an example by giving up smoking an occasional cigar.

So much for commitment and government leadership.