TOBACCO FIRMS PROPOSE REFORMS; CLINTON SPOKESMAN UNIMPRESSED.

Byline: Glenn Collins The New York Times

Seeking an alternative to federal regulation of the nicotine in tobacco as an addictive drug, two tobacco companies proposed Wednesday that Congress adopt sweeping laws to reduce teen-age smoking by banning vending sales and restricting advertisements and promotions.

But the companies were rebuffed by Mike McCurry, the White House spokesman, who said the companies' unexpected proposal ``falls a little bit short'' of the president's call to curb teen-age smoking. And some anti-tobacco organizations dismissed the companies' proposal as a public-relations stunt.

The two companies - Philip Morris USA, the tobacco unit of Philip Morris Cos., the nation's largest cigarette maker, and United States Tobacco Co., the nation's largest purveyor of chewing tobacco and snuff - proposed a ban on vending-machine cigarette sales, single-cigarette sales and promotional giveaways, as well as a ban on transit advertising of tobacco products and restrictions on billboard and stadium advertising and sports-event sponsorships.

Philip Morris and United States Tobacco also proposed a ban on tobacco-product logos on merchandise such as hats, clothing and gym bags. They further proposed that the tobacco industry spend $250 million over the next five years to enforce restrictions on teen-age smoking in the United States. The companies' proposals would not affect their international business.

Steve Parrish, a spokesman for Philip Morris, termed the proposal ``unprecedented and far-reaching,'' adding that the companies ``want to make it impossible for anyone to obtain any tobacco product from a manufacturer or retailer without a face-to-face transaction where proof of age can be checked.''

But Parrish said the tobacco companies would support such legislation only if the Food and Drug Administration withdrew its proposals to regulate the sale of tobacco. He added that five tobacco companies would continue to sue the FDA in federal court to block the proposed regulations.

Spokesmen for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. said they would reserve comment on the Philip Morris and United States Tobacco proposal until they could give it further study. A representative of Lorillard Tobacco Co., a unit of Loews Corp., supported many of the suggestions in the proposal.

``This announcement is obviously a pre-emptive strike against the FDA,'' said Richard A. Daynard, chairman of the Tobacco Products Liability Project at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, a nonprofit anti-smoking group. ``They want to make sure that the FDA has nothing to do with regulating them.''

Parrish denied that the companies were attempting to avoid more stringent restrictions. But critics of the tobacco industry said that under the companies' proposal, cigarette brand images, such as Joe Camel and the Marlboro Man, would be unaffected. Under the federal agency's plan, much advertising would be limited to black-and-white advertisements of text with no graphics.