European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - August 5, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                The stars and stripes tuesday August 5,1986 columns James j. Kilpatrick Synar s anti tobacco Bill May be constitutional. _ _. _ ,�.�j i rep. Mike sonar an Oklahoma Democrat Calls his Bill the health Protection act of 1986." what it is. In fact is a Bill to prohibit All advertising and pro motion of cigarettes and other tobacco products. The gentleman is nothing if not draconian. He would forbid All newspaper and Magazine advertise ments billboards posters signs decals matchbook advertising and All other written or other material used for promoting the Sale or consumption of tobacco products to  he would ban All premiums and samples. It would be unlawful for any tobacco company to sponsor any athletic artistic or other  the Federal Trade commission would enforce the act. A standing room Only crowd turned out last month for a hearing on the Bill. A House committee heard from the american medical association the american cancer society the american Academy 9f paediatrics and the american Public health association. The Tes Timony from these distinguished bodies was All to the same effect cigarette smoking is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths by cancer every year. One third fall deaths by cardiovascular disease Are associated with tobacco use. Smoking is the major cause of lung cancer in women. In 1985 the Federal government paid about $4.2 billion 19 treat diseases related to smoking. The tobacco Institute will offer opposing testimony on aug. 1. It is unlikely that Synar s Bill will pass in the few weeks remaining of this Congress but the crowd in the Rayburn building was itself testimony to the emotional steam behind the proposal. About half of All adult americans have smoked at one time or another 54 million persons still smoke but the smokers constitute an almost inarticulate minority. The anti smoking lobby is a powerful Force to be reckoned with. Synar s Bill in my own View is clearly unconstitutional. But if the measure becomes Law and winds up with a test Case in the supreme court that May not be the court s View and the court s View unfortunately counts for More than my own. During the past term the court voted 5-4 to uphold puerto Rico s ban on Casino advertising aimed at the puerto rican people. The decision in posadas v. Tourism company strongly suggests that a Federal ban on tobacco advertising would command the same judicial support. In a Case known As Valentine v.  in 1942, the court held almost casually that commercial speech has no rights whatever under the first amendment. In 1973, the court voted 5-4 to uphold a Pittsburgh ordinance prohibiting newspapers from car William Safire ban i still & we w Vertise trying gender specific classified ads for help wanted. Then the court began to take a slightly friendlier View of advertising. In 1975, the court voted 7-2 to nullify a Virginia statute prohibiting the advertisement of abortion services. In 1976, with Only Justice Rochn quist dissenting the court invalidated another Virginia statute this one prohibiting the Price advertising of prescription drugs. The following year the court voted 8-0 against a township ordinance in new Jersey to prohibit the posting of for Sale signs on residential property. The object was to deter White flight away from Willingboro. A few weeks later in Carey v. Population services the court upheld the advertising of contraceptives. In june 1980, the court speaking through Justice Powell handed Down its most definitive pronounce ment on commercial speech. The Case involved Adver Tising by the Central Hudson Gas and electric co. To promote the Sale of electricity. The new York Public service commission had issued a regulation prohibit ing such advertising in the name of Energy conserva Tion. The court Laid Down a four part test. First Advertis ing cannot be misleading or fraudulent and it must concern a lawful activity. Second advertising May be restricted Only if the government s interest is sub Stan  third the restrictions directly Advance the government s asserted interest and fourth the restrictions Are no More extensive than necessary to serve that  cigarettes Are a lawful product. There is no question about that. The government s interest in promoting Public health As the court has held in other cases clearly is  a ban on All tobacco promotions presumably would Advance that interest but Are the sweeping provisions of Synar s Bill no More Exten Sive than necessary you can read the cases either Way. I do not believe Congress constitutionally could pro Hibit a newspaper or a Magazine from accepting Adver Tising for a lawful product but the court just held otherwise in posadas. The opinion was written by Rehnquist and Rehnquist is Likely to be chief Justice for quite some time to come. Una jul pm a nac a in the end Roy Cohn will defeat his enemies i bring out the worst in my ene Mies Roy Cohn once told me and that s How i get them to defeat them  with that technique he will ultimately defeat the Buzzards of the establishment bar who reached new Legal Depths by waiting until a combative lawyer was on his deathbed and unable personally to contest 15-year-old charges of unethical conduct. His late hitting tormentors achieved his disbarment alter hinting darkly that the evidence of a terminal disease might be a typical Cohn trick to Curry sympathy or delay punishment the defendant made his Point last weekend with his death. By bringing out the worst in our guardians of journalistic ethics and pub Lic morality he Defeated them too. "60 minutes demeaned itself by leering at length at his closet homosexuality. A great Washington newspaper decided to run a column based on confidential re cords from the National institutes of health where Cohn was submitting to experimental treatment for aids and cancer. Doctors with some sense of medical ethics and journalists with some regard m for a Core of human privacy Are shamed by these examples of investigative excess. Years before that Roy Cohn dealt de feat to such formidable prosecutors As Robert Kennedy and Robert Morgen Thau who for years abused the vast Power entrusted to them in order to get Roy a hated personal and political enemy. Cohn not Only won repeated acquittals in court but saw the prosecutors mock their pretensions of civil Liberty. In each instance the reaction of those who could never forgive the smears blacklists and depredations of the Mccarthy Era was he deserves All he gets and if it s unfair it s Only poetic  Roy Cohn enjoyed that reaction be cause it demonstrated that the fury directed his Way was often based on hypocrisy not principle and showed that his detractors wanted vengeance not Justice. He considered that the abuse of Power he engaged in As a Young Man was justified or balanced by similar abuses directed at him in his adulthood. Nobody received More poetic Justice than Roy Cohn or suffered less from it. Roy was an assistant in the . Attorney s office in new York when i met him shaking up narcotics racketeers before that became popular and before he took an interest in anti communism. I wrote a piece about his drug investigations in the new York Herald Tribune and we became friends. Being a Friend of Roy s was a lifelong roller coaster ride. Vicissitudes helped develop an authentic individuality. He was Brilliant professionally intimidating iconoclastic rude he would eat off your plate but would pick up the Tab and in time turned himself into a one Man unpopular cause. He denied his homosexuality because he could never reconcile it with his self image of political masculinity. Nobody intimidated him not the government whose irs he challenged not the mafia some of whose hoods he de fended not the press whose bad publicity he courted not the Catholic Church whose archdiocese in new York he rep resented not bomber lawyers whom he out bombed in court not even Frank Sinatra whom he was willing to offend when i needed on the record verification for a column. He revealed in ironic symmetries As one of the junket ering Gumshoe investigating the . Information Agency libraries abroad in the Early 50s, he undercut Freedom of expression and presented liberals with an easy target three decades later he was Able to put his Man in As head of the Usia s voice of Ameri Ca. He started his career exploiting National disloyalty but wound up an exemplar of personal loyalty. Ask anyone who knew him Well and that s the word you hear sometimes defensively Loyal. Loyalty May not be the most important trait in a human being and it can be misplaced but in a time of coolly calibrated acquaintanceship it is Good to Beable to count on someone to fight fiercely for you even if he disagrees with you. Loyalty has moral value and can bring out the Best in us. Last time i saw him when he wanted to pass along some information about Public figures who would outlive him he apologized for looking so awful. I told him he looked awful Long before he got sick. He laughed at that and reminded me never to get defensive about being his Friend. I wont and wish the Gumshoe Well on his final junket. Now York times tha opinion up time m the column. And Uno Oraon inn is Nora uni thou of the author and urn in no Way to big conic Trad  the Vinto it Sun