Smoking Insurrection Teens Plan Sit-In Against Cigarettes

About three dozen teenagers plan to converge on a Seattle restaurant today, not out of hunger but out of anger that the restaurant allows smoking.

The youths say they will enter the International House of Pancakes on First Hill, filling up the smoking section and staying as long as they can in an effort to show patrons and employees alike what a smoke-free restaurant feels like.

The restaurant was chosen because of its central location and popularity with young people.

Fifteen-year-old Kristen Anderson is coming from Bellevue to join the smoke-free sit-in.

There are other things the high school sophomore could do with her day, but she said it takes only the memory of how she got hooked on cigarettes in the sixth grade to reinforce her decision to be at the restaurant.

“I got peer-pressured into smoking. My friends made me feel insecure about myself. Every day they would say ‘Oh you’re so straight, you’ve never smoked, you’ve never done drugs and you’ve never made out with a boy.’ “

It wasn’t long, she said, before she was puffing on whatever brand she could get.

But as Anderson’s self-confidence grew, her need for cigarettes declined. Now she calls cigarettes “gross” and, through a new group called Resistance Education Against Continuing Tobacco Use (REACT), warns other teens about the dangers.

Spurred in part by President Clinton’s aggressive push to snuff out underage smoking, teenagers such as Anderson say they are ready to move into the forefront of the war against tobacco.

“It’s amazing, this whole movement of teenagers getting involved and taking action, because they’re the ones who really count,” said Lauren Bernard of Washington Doctors Ought to Care (Washington Doc), a nonprofit organization working against tobacco use that is helping REACT coordinate its campaign.

Washington state law makes it illegal to sell tobacco to anyone under the age of 18. A 1994 report by the state attorney general found that nearly all states have such a law but rarely enforce it.

As the youth anti-smoking movement gathers steam, other organizations also are preparing to build on the national momentum created by Clinton.

Washington Doc and other health organizations plan to lobby the state Legislature to earmark a portion of the excise tax on cigarettes to support anti-smoking campaigns aimed at youths.