Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 8, 1995 TAG: 9508080052
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Taking a break from the games in the video arcade, T.J. Hood ducked out a door at Valley View Mall and lighted a Marlboro.
Hood took a deep drag on the cigarette. He likes the taste and sensation he gets from smoking.
He smokes about two packs a day, he said, a habit that costs him nearly $3 a day. He has a part-time job to help pay for his cigarettes.
Sometimes, he thinks about the warnings of health dangers from cigarettes. But he keeps smoking anyway.
Hood is 16, a sophomore at Martinsville High School. He began smoking when he was in the eighth grade.
He is among the increasing number of high school students across the country who are lighting up and ignoring the dangers of smoking.
Teen smoking is increasing rapidly, according to a new federally sponsored study by the University of Michigan. Researchers said the increase in smoking cuts across race, gender and socioeconomic lines.
The survey found that 31.2 percent of high school seniors said they had smoked in the past 30 days. That was up from 28.3 percent in 1991.
To help reverse the trend, President Clinton is considering new restrictions on vending machines, cigarette ads and sales near schools. The regulations could be announced as early as this week.
Clinton also is considering a proposal for the federal Food and Drug Administration to regulate cigarettes as a drug.
The younger the students, the more dramatic the increase, the University of Michigan study found.
The number of eighth-graders who said they smoked jumped from 14.3 percent in 1991 to 18.6 percent last year.
Hood is one of the teen-agers who has helped account for the rise in smoking by teen-agers. The number of 10th-graders who said they smoke increased from 20.8 percent to 25.4 percent.
Hood said he has no trouble buying cigarettes, even though it is illegal to sell them to minors in Virginia.
J.C. Martin, a friend of Hood's, said he has been smoking since he was 9. Martin, 19, said he started because some friends were smoking.
``I don't really worry about the health effects. It helps my nerves sometimes,'' said Martin, who dropped out of Bassett High School. He was in Roanoke last week with Hood at the video arcade. They had to go outside to smoke because it is banned inside the mall.
Martin doesn't believe that more restrictions on cigarette ads would necessarily curb the increase in teen smoking. ``They didn't have any effect on me getting started,'' he said.
Terry Taylor, 17, sat on a step in front of the City Market Building in Roanoke and puffed on a Newport. He's been smoking for several years.
Taylor, who will be a senior at William Fleming High School this year, used to smoke a pack a day, but he has cut that in half.
He wants to quit because he plays basketball at Fleming and hopes to play college basketball. Smoking doesn't hurt his basketball skills, he said, but it does reduce his endurance.
Taylor said he has no trouble buying cigarettes, and is seldom asked his age. He began smoking mainly because some friends were smoking.
Cigarette ads didn't influence him, either, he said. But he believes they do help persuade many teen-agers to begin smoking.
Some researchers blame the rise in teen smoking on the $5 billion a year the cigarette industry spends on advertising, which links smoking, sexiness and success.
The University of Michigan researchers said teen-agers give little thought to the health dangers. Only half of all eighth-graders believe smokers risk harming themselves by smoking, the researchers said.
Lloyd Johnston, who directed the survey, said the findings were a warning that the next generation of American adults could face rising rates of lung cancer, heart disease and other smoking-related diseases.
Bruce Dennis, 17, said he doesn't worry about the health dangers.
``I don't pay much attention to that. I know people who have smoked a long time and they are in good health,'' said Dennis, as he prepared to play a video game at Valley View Mall.
Dennis began smoking when he was 12. He smokes a pack a day. ``I quit for four months one time, but I started again,'' he said.
Dennis finds it easy to buy cigarettes.
``I can walk in almost anywhere and people think I am old enough to buy them and they don't ask me my age,'' he said.
The Michigan survey found that three-quarters of eighth-graders and 90 percent of 10th-graders said they found cigarettes ``easy'' or ``very easy'' to get.
Several other teen-agers in the video arcade would not give their names or say where they get their cigarettes. But they light up and puff outside the mall. One said he was 16 and has been smoking since he was 12.
Greg Bolen, 19, took a break from his job at Dairy Queen and went outside the mall for a quick smoke. Bolen has been smoking for about a year, but said he wasn't hooked.
``I don't really classify myself as a smoker,'' he said. ``I come out here mainly because it gives me something to do.''
Bolen said he smokes only about a pack a week. He is interested in sports and played baseball at Northside High School.
He said he would not worry about the health dangers, even if he smoked more. ``What is going to happen is probably going to happen anyway,'' he said.
by CNB