More Teens Saying 'No' to Smoking

A T L A N T A, Aug. 24 -- Smoking among high-schoolers dropped slightlylast year after climbing for most of the 1990s, the government saidtoday.

Government analysts attributed the drop to teen smokingprevention programs and the higher cost of cigarettes.

“The good news is we appear to be cresting or starting todecline from the epidemic of the 1990s,” said Terry Pechacek,associate director of the Office of Smoking and Health at theCenters for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC said 34.8 percent of high school students in 1999reported that they had smoked a cigarette in the previous 30 days.That was down from 36.4 percent in 1997 and the first overalldecline since the government’s first such study, in 1991.

Smoking dropped 17 percent among high school freshmen in whatwas seen as a particularly encouraging sign.

“That’s where we’re having the impact,” Pechacek said. “It’s when they’re in that transition period, from having tried acigarette behind the football stands to daily smoking.

Big Tobacco, Little Kids

But government analysts also said community efforts are beingfoiled by tobacco advertising that hooks young smokers.

Tobacco companies said they are complying with the 1998 nationaltobacco settlement, in which they agreed not to market to youngpeople.

“We do not want kids to smoke, period,” said Steve Kottak, aspokesman for Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., which makes Koolsand Lucky Strike cigarettes. “We want to work with our critics onthis. All of us share responsibility. Rather than pointing fingers,let’s try to solve the problem.”

While the smoking rate dropped among high school freshmen — from33.4 percent in 1997 to 27.6 percent in 1999 — it rose among12th-graders, from 39.6 percent to 42.8 percent.

And the number of frequent smokers, defined as those havingsmoked at least 20 of the past 30 days, rose to 16.8 percent —about one-third higher than it was in 1991.