Idaho Teenagers Will Get Help Fighting Cigarettes Schools Receive Extra Money To Teach Kids That It’s Not Cool To Be Addicted

They gather on street corners, get friends to buy cigarettes for them and hurriedly stamp them out when police officers draw near.

“Most everyone around here smokes,” said Rocky Nations, 18, nodding toward a circle of kids kicking a hacky sack. He picked up the habit a few months ago, thinking “it was the cool thing to do.”

Leaning over a tan newspaper vending machine with him was Joel Otter, who had just returned from Wilson’s Drug Store, where he bought cigarettes for a girl wearing a T-shirt that said, “No smoking.”

Otter admitted he was underage, but wouldn’t say how old he is. He didn’t have any problem buying two packs of Marlboros. Otter’s smoked since third grade, he said.

“I thought it was cool watching the smoke come out of your nose when I was little,” he said.

Both teens agreed that smoking is a serious health risk. Each has tried to quit.

They are part of a growing population - young people who smoke - that federal and local authorities hope to help kick the habit with new regulations and educational programs.

Otter and Nations agreed that President Clinton’s campaign to reduce teen smoking by 50 percent over the next seven years is probably a good idea.

The federal efforts will be augmented in Idaho with a variety of school programs across the state financed by a 5-cent tax on tobacco products.

The money, almost $4 million statewide, is paying health experts to visit schools and drive home the message that smoking and chewing tobacco are not “cool.”

The money has purchased health textbooks for Kellogg schools, is paying for smoking-cessation classes at Post Falls High School, more substance abuse counseling in the Lakeland schools and special aides in various districts who will help “at-risk” students learn to make good choices.

This is the first year that the new tobacco tax revenues will be distributed to Idaho schools. Of the $7 million collected, half is going to substance abuse prevention and half to juvenile probation officers.

The state infusion of money comes at a time when federal dollars for anti-drug and alcohol programs are dropping off and teen smoking is on the rise.

“We will see a direct connection between educational efforts and decreased drug use,” said Colleen Kelsey, Post Falls teacher and drug education coordinator. “When there was a larger amount of funding for drug use prevention, the drug use went down. And when it started to dry up, the use went up.”

Students are aware that smoking is bad for them.

In fact, a recent adolescent-health survey by the Panhandle Health District showed that North Idaho teenagers ranked smoking as the No. 1 health risk for their age group.

“They realize it’s a problem, but I don’t believe that we’ve seen teen smoking rates go down,” said DeNene Banger, child health services coordinator for the health district. “Kids are aware. Education has worked.”

So why do they start?

“Kids want to look grown up,” suggested Banger.

“To be cool,” Kelsey said. “Often by the time they’re in high school, they recognize the futility of that and want to quit.”

The Post Falls School District caught 144 students smoking at school last year. Because it was the first year school officials kept track, they don’t have statistics to show whether the problem is growing.

In Coeur d’Alene, an annual substance abuse survey showed a sharp increase in the number of 10th-graders who smoked from 1992 to 1993. In 1994, the numbers dropped 4 percent to 22 percent of the class.

At the same time, the number of regular eighth-grade smokers increased slightly to 14 percent.

Clinton blames much of the increase on advertising.

“When Joe Camel tells young children that smoking is cool, when billboards tell teens that smoking will lead to true romance, when Virginia Slims tells adolescents that cigarettes may make them thin and glamorous, then our children need our wisdom, our guidance and our experience,” the president said in a speech last month.

Just as teenagers realize smoking is unhealthy, they recognize that advertising is trying to manipulate them.

For instance, Otter said that when he lived in Phoenix, “all the little kids thought Joe Camel was really cool. They wore Camel T-shirts and they’d collect all the Camel Cash and order stuff” through Camel cigarette catalogs.

While young people have plenty of temptations to smoke, they lack reasons not to.

Police admit the law prohibiting underage smoking may do little more than make smoking less visible in public.

Around the corner from where Otter and Nations pondered their habits, 16-year-old Mica Misetich was caught red-handed by two police officers. She seethed as Officer Jon Hoffman began writing out a citation. She pulled her midlength blond hair back tight with a fist and reluctantly gave her name.

Hoffman’s partner extinguished the cigarette, and finally the officer left with a stern warning and no citation.

Flustered, Misetich said she just wanted to go home.

“It makes me want to have another cigarette right now,” she said, gathering up her knapsack off the bench. “Not to be defiant, but just because I’m stressed out.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: A burning problem Studies show that smoking is a growing problem among young people. Here are some of the statistics: The White House reports that 30 percent of 3-year-olds and 91 percent of 6-year-olds can identify Joe Camel as a symbol for smoking. From 1991 to 1994, smoking among the nation’s eighth-graders increased 30 percent. Every day another 3,000 young people become regular smokers. Nearly 1,000 of them will eventually die as a result, according to the Food and Drug Administration. Smoking among African-American youth is on the decline. A white high school senior is four times more likely to smoke a cigarette daily than a black senior. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the health care costs associated with smoking in 1993 totaled about $50 billion. Smoking was named the top adolescent health problem by North Idahoans who took part in a Panhandle Health District survey last spring. Most of the respondents were under 20. The next two biggest problems named were substance abuse and teen pregnancy. - Susan Drumheller