U.S. TOBACCO SUIT FLIES IN THE FACE OF ALL LOGIC

President Clinton's decision to file suit against the tobacco companies is one of the very worst of his presidency, ranking right up there with the 1993 push for his and his wife's ill-fated health-care plan. The Clinton theory seems to be that the federal government is owed damages for costs relating to treating tobacco-related illnesses. This is ludicrous.

First, we have the work of Harvard law professor Kip Viscusi, who has conclusively demonstrated that government makes money from the sale of tobacco, given the relatively early mortality of smokers and the enormously heavy taxes they pay on every pack. Those heavy taxes make clear that government is one of the largest profiteers from the tobacco trade.

Second, we have the statement of Mr. Clinton's own attorney general, Janet Reno. Last year Reno mused aloud about tobacco issues before flatly admitting that the federal government -- as distinct from the states -- literally has no legal cause of action to bring.

Third, we have the history that may have been in the back of Reno's strange mind. There is the little problem that the federal government has for many decades subsidized the cultivation of tobacco. Until 1974, the armed forces literally gave away cigarettes free to enlisted men. Federal policy has long been tobacco-friendly.

Fourth, we have the indisputable fact that if bogus lawsuits such as these succeed, the result will be another massive unlegislated tax increase. Unlegislated tax increases are in fact the primary fallout from the state-level lawsuits against the tobacco companies. Foes of Big Tobacco tried for decades to achieve legislatively the kind of restrictions they have just succeeded in getting through the courts, only to meet with repeated failure. When they finally transferred the action to friendly courts, the result was an almost unnoticed shift of the awesome powers of elected lawmakers -- especially the power to tax -- to mostly unelected judges and totally unelected plaintiffs' lawyers. This represents a grave threat to the freedoms of all Americans.

We hope without too much real expectation that the Clinton attempts to loot the sellers of this legal product will be laughed out of court. In a court system still moored to a semblance of sanity, that would be the result.