Russia's legislature appears to be on the verge of passing one of the world's most stringent laws on tobacco and alcohol advertising.


In a few days or a few months -- whenever the State Duma gets around to it -- reporters could be treated to the spectacle of some of the most hard-drinking, heavy-smoking legislators on earth voting to completely ban ads for tobacco and alcohol from Russia's airwaves, newspapers, billboards and everywhere else. It would not be the first time. The Supreme Soviet passed a similar ban on tobacco and alcohol advertising in June 1993, but it was never enforced.


It is hard to say where the impetus for such a move comes from in a country where tobacco and alcohol were immensely popular even when advertising did not exist. Most likely, the fact that most of the advertisements hawk foreign brands has summoned the deputies' sense of patriotism, even though local manufacturers say the ban will hurt them, too.


Taken by itself, the idea of regulating ads for cigarettes and spirits should be commended. Tobacco companies in particular sell a product that can kill, and the foreign companies are coming to Russia because there is a huge potential market at a time when demand has stopped growing at home.


But, let's face it: Russia, as a nation, drinks and smokes a lot, has always drunk and smoked a lot and will continue to drink and smoke a lot for the foreseeable future. Advertising did not create these facts and will not change them: It is only going to change the brands that people smoke or drink. And the Supreme Soviet's previous attempt shows that a ban on ads is not likely to work.


Thus, cynical as it may seem, the best approach would be to reap some benefit from the industry to address the real problems on which it is now planning to cash in. Instead of banning ads, the government could force tobacco and alcohol firms to include health warnings and to pay for public service ads. Such a measure would not only be easier to enforce, but would go a long way toward providing the basic education on the dangers of smoking that is particularly lacking in Russia.


Tobacco companies have shown in other countries -- after decades of scientific research showing the ill effects their product causes -- that they are willing to spend a great deal of money on social programs, so long as the government allows them to peddle their wares.


Why should not Russia, too, use money from the tobacco companies to persuade people to stop smoking? The evil, after all, is not brash advertizing billboards, but cancer.