BY DICK MORRIS

From now on, blame teen smoking on Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Donna Shalala.  In perhaps the most blatant and disgusting act of political demagoguery in recent history, they torpedoed Congressional passage of the settlement the courageous Attorneys General negotiated with their defeated tobacco company adversaries in order to keep the issue alive for the 2000 election.

Now, the U.S. Supreme Court has done what Donna, Bill and Al swore it would not do -- invalidate the core of the anti-tobacco initiatives proposed by the Clinton Administration by striking down FDA regulation of cigarettes.  The Attorneys General had secured the agreement of the tobacco companies to accept FDA jurisdiction and had even to consent, with twisted arms, to grant the FDA the power to ban all tobacco products in thirteen years. 

Having used the tobacco issue to win the 1996 election, Clinton bowed to the liberals -- Gore and Shalala -- and turned his back on the settlement which voluntarily extended FDA jurisdiction so as to keep the issue alive for the 2000 campaign.  Now, Clinton, Gore and Shalala are left holding a bag of nothing.  The FDA has been stripped of the capacity to ban cigarette ads, block sales to minors, stop the spiking of cigarettes with extra addictive nicotine, and protect kids from the wiles of big tobacco.  Now, the kids are fair game and tobacco can do its evil will.

A large slice of the blame goes to former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop and ex-FDA boss David Kessler.  These dedicated public health advocates blundered in overplaying their hand.  Assuming that they could pocket the industry's agreement to FDA regulation, they spurned the Attorney General settlement and asked for more and more and more.  In the end, tragically, they got less.

What will priests do when there is no more sin?  Doctors when there is no disease?  Or public health advocates when their is no more tobacco? 

In continuing to fight the battle and refusing to accept tobacco's surrender, the public health advocates lost the war.  But Koop and Kessler made a mistake.  Gore, Clinton, and Shalala were not even well motivated. 

When Senator John McCain introduced legislation to extend FDA jurisdiction to tobacco, Clinton, Gore, and Shalala insisted on saddling it with a huge tobacco tax hike to fund their liberal big spending initiatives.  As any idiot could have predicted, the tax killed the package.  Big tobacco was able to portray the bill as a tax increase on working people.  Skillfully aided by media guru Carter Eskew, the cigarette companies killed the McCain bill.

In her opinion striking down FDA jurisdiction, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor practically begged Congress to pass legislation authorizing regulation of tobacco by the agency.  Clinton, Gore, and Shalala knew that they would lose in court.  When the US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against them, they should have seen the handwriting on the wall.  But Shalala wanted the money for her agency, Gore wanted an issue on which to campaign, and Clinton, distracted, uninterested,and re-elected, caved in.

Now Al Gore insults our intelligence by using the tobacco issue to win the 2000 election.  Had he acted responsibly, there would be no tobacco issue, just the tobacco achievement.  To add to the injury, the very man who wrote the ads that killed the tobacco regulation bill, conceived the strategy, and ran the initiative for the tobacco companies -- Eskew --now runs the Gore campaign. 

FDA regulation would have sounded the death knell of smoking in the United States.  The agency would have had the authority gradually to reduce the nicotine content of cigarettes until it ultimately got the power to ban the addictive drug entirely.  Literally millions of lives would have been saved. 

The need for FDA jurisdiction is urgent.  160,000 Americans die from lung cancer every year --- more than from the next four most prevalent cancers combined.  Twice as many women die from lung cancer as from breast cancer.  Twice as many men die from lung cancer as from prostate cancer.  One hundred thousand more die from cigarette induced heart disease every year.  Many more succumb to emphysema.

But given a chance to avert this slaughter of the innocents, Shalala opted to build her revenues and swell the power of her agency, Gore chose to have the issue not to savor the accomplishment, and Clinton sat by and did nothing.

Through it all, Hillary Clinton, the Adminstration's point person on health care, held her tongue and said nothing.  The greatest public health initiative of our time went down the drain and no one heard a peep out of her.

This disgraceful chapter in the history of this Administration is now closed by the action of the Supreme Court. But lets learn its lessons -- you can't trust Shalala, Clinton, or Gore.

This column first appeared in the New York Post.