To seal the deal, the Senate also agreed to a $12 billion, 10-year buyout for tobacco farmers. But this, too, would bring about significant changes in longtime government policy. The buyout would end the Depression-era program that uses government-issued quotas to allocate and limit production. The Senate would make tobacco companies pay for the buyout through a user fee that could be passed on to smokers.

Tobacco farmers traditionally have relied on federal quotas to limit production and keep prices up. There are about 400,000 quota owners -- most of them in the Carolinas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia -- many of whom do not grow or deal in tobacco.

It is estimated that if quotas were discontinued, about half of the estimated 100,000 active growers may give up the crop altogether. Nonetheless, many farmers, forced to compete with cheaper imported tobacco, were so desperate for the money that would come from the buyout that they were willing to go along with this bill anyway.

The House, meanwhile, passed a bill last month that included a smaller $9.6 billion buyout over five years, the cost of which would be spread among all taxpayers. Significantly, the bill contained no new FDA regulations on manufacturing and marketing cigarettes and other tobacco products.

We hope the regulations contained in the Senate version prevail. It is high time that cigarettes came under closer scrutiny of the government. The first priority should be to eliminate the harmful additives used in cigarettes to enhance taste and, in some cases, to make them more addictive.

A buyout still leaves the federal government in the uncomfortable position of providing price supports to an industry selling an addictive substance while government health agencies wage campaigns to reduce smoking. But at least this measure gets something substantive in return.

IN SUMMARY
Senate measure would let FDA regulate how tobacco is produced and marketed.