European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - February 6, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes thursday february 6,1986 columns Ellen Goodman Nancy Reagan should add tobacco to her hit feta if there a one thing on Elaine Crispin s White House desk that she in t proud of it s the ashtray. The press Secretary Tor Nancy Reagan a first lady who has made drug abuse her no. I Issue admits thai she is hooked on cigarettes. Crispin has tried and failed to quit. Not even her College daughter s cheery threats i m not staying in the House this Christmas if you re still smoking and not even the memory of the president s disapproval of a loaded ashtray ask ask have helped her to kick the habit. Bui finding an addict Mong the warriors against drug abuse in the White House especially teen age drug abuse in t that surprising. Yes the National Institute on drug abuse ranks tobacco As the most lethal and the most addictive of All drugs. The american psychiatric association lists the inability to quit As a tobacco dependence  the american medical association is calling for a ban on All cigarette advertising. Still tobacco is not usually thought of As a drug with a capital d. We do not think of Lucky strikes and smack of Vantage and crack of Marlboro and co Caine of Virginia slims and Ltd in the same vein. We do not think of Elaine Crispin and a drug addict in the same Way either. So tobacco has yet to win a place of Honor where it really belongs on the first lady s Agenda the first lady s hit list. In private mrs. Reagan has spoken out. As her press Secretary says mrs. Reagan knows smoking in t Good. I know she encourages friends to  in Public she has come Only As close As the foreword to a Book on marijuana my primary purpose in this Battle against drugs is to draw attention to the problem to make people aware and get them involved. The Wall of denial has surrounded the Issue of drug abuse too  i can t imagine a belter introduction to the topic of teen age tobacco addiction. Tobacco is not illegal. Tobacco is not intoxicating. Tobacco does t cause immediate harm. You do not have to become a Pusher or prostitute or mugger to support a cigarette habit. Cigarette smokers do not drop out of High school and Rob their parents pocketbooks and die in the streets. It s All too easy to build a Wall of denial around this drug abuse because it does t make such dramatic copy. And yet tobacco does destroy lives. To some like William Pollin the former chairman of the National Institute on drug abuse cigarettes Are a Gateway into the hard Core drug world. But on its own tobacco was related to 350,000 american deaths last year. David Broder pro Bacoco. Deaths that started at an Early age. Over 95 percent of smokers begin puffing before they Are 21, most in Junior High school before they have the judgment to say no or the vision to see their own mortality. Smoking it is True is becoming extinct among a Young elite Only 5 percent of the incoming freshmen at Harvard and 2 percent of those at Dartmouth smoke but in the same age group one out of every five is still puffing away. Tho numbers alone May make tobacco seem like a Normal  glamorous ads push this drug unceasingly but the White House has its own Glamour and Nancy Reagan has greater name recognition than Ben son & Hedges. What a remarkable counter and she could be. Mrs. Reagan s current drug abuse program warning about uppers and Downers has reached an audience wider than those who sell Longs and slims. She has a logical and remarkable Chance to affect National health just by Tell ing the truth just by talking about tobacco a it drug and about smokers As drug abusers. Have i forgotten about politics and the Power a Bacco lobbies not at All. But lately the tobacco cof Nies have begun to sound like patients in the it til of emphysema. They can barely yell they need All Energy to keep breathing. Today the Public image tobacco lobby is just a notch above that of w Corner Pusher. I Don t believe that smoking is too Trover Sial for a president s wife. Of this is the first lady after All who said "11 an authority on drugs but i do care about Young i and i Don t think we can afford to lose a Gene our Young people to  nor can we i lose another generation in the ashes. Tobacco i1 add it to the list. It ovum Nylon poll or attn group i breakdown of american family must be Addre Over the last 25 years it is hard to think of two Public figures who have More consistently and constructively addressed the major concerns of this nation than Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Bill d. Movers. That both of them now have chosen to focus on the breakdown of the family especially the Black family strongly suggests that the rest of us should pay close attention. Moyers documentary on lbs on Jan. 25 brought to life the painful reality of which Moynihan the senator from new York wrote in his newly published Book family and  that reality is that a growing portion of America s Young people a Large majority of Blacks and More than one third of the Whites will spend a substantial portion of their first 18 years in a family with no Man. Many of them will have started life As children born out of Wedlock often As children of females still in their teens. They Are part of a growing culture of poverty that mocks the economic gains the rest of us Are enjoying. Alice Sandra Jackson one of movers subjects was 20 when the first of her three Chil Dren was born. She had graduated from High school taken a year at a business school and was working steadily when she got pregnant i wanted to be a Mother you know she said. It was exciting to me. I just thought i d have something of my own a Little child that s Gonna Call me mama two More pregnancies followed in the next three years. Alice now lives on welfare though she says it makes you Lazy just to sit around and wait for a monthly Check to come  the father of her children is Tim Othy Mcseed who has three other living children by As Many other women none of whom he supports. Born to a 16-year old unmarried woman Timothy is a High school dropout who has not worked in almost three years. He will marry he says grinning when he can afford a big wedding with All the trimmings. Stories like this Are what made Eleanor Holmes Norton a Black scholar lawyer and Public official say repair of the Black family is Central to any serious strategy to improve the Black  but not just the Black family. As Moy Nihan writes by the mid-1980s, it was Clear that family disorganization had be come a general feature of the american population and not just an aspect of a frequently stigmatized and appropriately sensitive minority Community. In 1965, Moynihan described an approaching new crisis in race relations because one fifth of the non while Komi Joes had a female head of household today he notes single Parent families with children accounted for More than one Quarter of All family groups White condition for the one group T \9ts? the general  what lies ahead for the growing num or one Parent children is indicated by Jim Tenn foundation study cited by Moynihan. They Are poor students 40a in sent More often Moreto be truant and twice As Likely to a eve Fittl at which pint.  like y to be unemployed ase. And prs creat Sussi by i los blowing Middle  two Parent families. \ it remains to be seen we concern will inform decision ibis age of budget cutting. But immediate response is unlikely i Lenge must be posed Asmo Nihan posed it. Carolyn with her husband runs a o Ter in the heart of the be closed movers program by i that preaching greater personal i responsibility was not in vain. They won t listen to me Hei it does t make any differ replied. You be got to say Tatj they May not listen to me either if you say it in your Corner and ii my Corner and everybody j Sayf going to be like a drumbeat or later it will sound. I think \ to surpass color. And you re not be Safe i m not going to of nobody s going to be Safe i Send out this drumbeat a with it. Let s Deal with the c Washington poll a hand tha opinions top mad in lha con Mil pan Rie Rauni mom of it a no. Way to a cont tort Tim Stan and so rpm or i Rumfil