January 12, 2000

Teens still struggling with smoking

By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
       This young lady is hooked.
      Just 14 years old, Tori knows cigarettes are bad for her, not to mention illegal. She has even started a fire accidentally in her mother's home while sneaking a smoke. But quitting? That's another story for this veteran smoker who started puffing at 8 and inhaling at 11.
      Starting her second Tobacco Awareness Class this week, taught by the American Lung Association and filled with stats and scary predictions, she does not know if this time she will make the break.
      "I am motivated to quit in a way, but it is kind of an extra stress on top of everything else like school," said Tori, who is down to just three or four cigarettes a day since being busted.
      "I already cough a lot, can't run and walking uphill is really hard. If I had a younger sister or brother, I would tell them never to start."
      The Tobacco Awareness Class is targeted at underage smokers who were caught smoking and given a citation by a police officer. Smokers under age 16 are referred by the magistrate's office and those age 17 by the District Court.
      "A lot of these kids are caught by the police liaison officers at the schools," said Laura Sutherin, senior program specialist at the American Lung Association. "The court system funnels them into our class, they are not just slapped with a fine. Their parents have to attend, too, and a lot of them smoke, starting at an age when there was little or no education about it."
      National statistics show that by the end of this decade, smoking rates among teenagers are rising. According to studies by the American Heart Association, this increase among teens means a tripling of smoking-related deaths around the world in the next century.
      Locally, a survey by the Safe and Drug-Free Schools show that smoking rates among Traverse City teenagers are increasing in the upper grades. In 1998, daily use among twelfth-grade students jumped to 27 percent from 17.6 percent just two years earlier. In addition, those smoking more than a half pack daily increased almost three percent in that time. National averages for 1998 show 22 percent of twelfth- graders smoking daily and 13 percent smoking more than a half pack a day, putting Traverse City smoking rates ahead of the rest of the country.
      The good news locally is that smoking rates among tenth-graders remained very similar for both daily use and amount smoked between 1996 and 1998. Even better news is that local eighth-grade students showed a significant decrease, with daily use dropping from 19 percent in 1996 to 13 percent in 1998. In addition, those smoking a half pack a day or more dropped from 10 percent to 5.4 percent during those years.
      Education and prevention are the keys to preventing teens or pre-teens from picking up this addiction. Studies showing that most smokers are hooked by the age of 18 and that those who don't start by that age are far less likely to ever do so.
      Combating peer pressure and advertising by cigarette companies is the number one job of tobacco educators. Ongoing programs in schools drive home the message, but it is a message that too many kids ignore. For those kids, local law enforcement officers' priority is to keep cigarettes out of their hands by preventing underage sales. They also cite underage smokers and then send them somewhere that will make a difference, like a Tobacco Awareness Class.
      "With the knowledge that kids have today, they would have to be hiding under a rock to not know it is harmful to your health," said Mary Beth Novak, the Safe and Drug-Free School Community Act Coordinator for the Traverse City Area Public School district. "The cigarette companies know that if they get kids hooked at a young age, they are more likely to be a lifetime smoker."
      As a teenage smoker, Tori does not want to be a lifetime smoker. She does not think of herself as just a statistic with the odds stacked against her. She knows what she is doing can harm her in the long run but her addiction illustrates perfectly the dilemma for anyone who smokes: how to stop doing something the body and mind crave so strongly.
      "Sometimes I feel really bad if I'm at a park smoking with my friends and a little kid is watching," Tori said. "What if he picks it up because of watching me? Once you start smoking, it seems like it is worth it, but it is not."