CIGARETTES KILL PEOPLE, and it seems now that Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger '38 wants to continue to include them among the weapons American soldiers carry into battle.

Weinberger ruled last week, despite the opposition of Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop, that cigarettes will not be removed from the list of items sold to military personnel at cut-rate prices. Tobacco products are sold at discounts of up to 35 percent at commissaries and military exchanges.

At the same time, Weinberger ordered that the military begin an educational program to encourage personnel not to smoke. A visit to the doctor or dentist will now include a short sermon on the ills of smoking.

The cigarette manufacturers, of course, applauded the secretary's decision. Walker Merryman, a spokesman for the Tobacco Institute, a lobbying group, said: "We support the secretary's decision.... We hope the [educational] campaign will be factual and provide a rational basis for a free and informed choice, which all adults should make."

Surprisingly, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Noncommissioned Officers Association, and the Reserve Officers Association--all presumably dedicated to the well-being of American soldiers--were vehement in their opposition to discontinuing the cigarette discount. According to Merryman, "They were concerned that, if half of the armed forces are smokers, loss of one of their benefits--buying discounted cigarettes--would be quite a blow." But isn't the loss of thousands of their members to cancer and heart disease each year a greater blow?

CIGARETTE SMOKING IS the single most preventable cause of illness in this country. What's more, epidemiologists estimate that we, as a society, lose billions each year as a result of sickness and lost productivity due to smoking.

Weinberger's decision--and the military associations' support of it--are short-sighted. And the tobacco industry's defense of their myopia is specious.

There is no inalienable right to smoke cigarettes. Governments routinely prohibit certain behaviors, simply because they are self-injurious. Yet lurking behind the tobacco industry's defense--that people should make a "free and informed choice"--is the notion that cigarette smoking is a right.

A discount on cigarettes is particularly unfortunate because teenagers and new smokers have been shown to be especially sensitive to price changes. According to Prof. Richard Daynard of the Northeastern University Law School, "By keeping prices 30 to 35 percent below market prices, the military is doing more to encourage young people to take up smoking and continue it."

Weinberger's token anti-smoking campaign is bound to fail. Obviously, it's the governmental equivalent of the parental maxim, "Do as I say, not as I do." On one hand, Uncle Sam tells his soldiers to eschew the evil tobacco leaf, while on the other, he provides them discounts on cigarettes.

THE SECRETARY'S POLICY, however illogical, is not anomalous. It reflects the federal government's contradictory position on smoking. For 20 years now, the surgeon general has been telling us that cigarettes are hazardous to our health. And for the same period, the federal government has continued to subsidize tobacco farmers. The cooptation of the Congress by the tobacco industry is shamefully apparent.

It's time to rationalize our policy on tobacco in this country. If we want people to stop smoking, we should not lower cigarette prices. If we want farmers to stop growing tobacco, we should not subsidize them.

Behavioral psychologists call that contingency management. Public-spirited legislators call it good government.