Adbusters and the Washington State Department of Health
This spoof of Joe Camel is part of the Washington State Department of Health's program for reducing teen smoking.

The younger they are the harder they fall

Smokers who start young are particularly vulnerable

JIM CARLILE, THE OLYMPIAN

Marene and Bryton Kenney struggle with tobacco every day.

Marene struggles with hiding it from her son, and Bryton, 13, struggles with finding her cigarettes and a good place to smoke them.

"I started locking the cigarettes up with a lock and key. I put them in the guest bedroom and locked the door, but he found that all it took to open it was a screwdriver," Ma-rene said. "Then I hid them in my bedroom and locked the door, but he got in with a screwdriver again. Now they're in a different place and I choose not to say where they are."

Bryton, sitting next to her, rolls his eyes. "They're in the black box in the Bronco," he said.

Marene gives him a steely glare and a ponderous pause as only mothers can do. "How did you find those?" she said.

Young smokers such as Bryton are getting more than their mothers' attention.

They are getting increased phlegm production at an earlier age, more severe respiratory illness and stunted lung growth. They also are getting the attention of several community groups aiming to wipe out teen smoking.

Groups are popping up all over -- with several in Thurston County alone -- dedicated to preventing youth smoking, finding out why kids smoke and where they get their cigarettes.

It's no secret that most adult smokers started as kids.

Among adults in the United States who have ever been daily smokers, 82 percent had their first cigarette before they turned 18. And 53 percent of them became daily smokers before they could legally buy tobacco, according to a report by the Surgeon General.

It's also not a surprise to learn that smoking is harder on the body of a young smoker than an adult.

People who begin smoking at an early age are more likely to develop severe levels of nicotine addiction than those who start at a later age, according to the American Lung Association.

In Washington, by the sixth grade, one-quarter of students have tried cigarettes. By their senior year in high school, about 70 percent of them have tried cigarettes.

The national statistics are even more grim. For instance, 3,000 kids will start smoking today. Of these, 35 will be murdered and 55 will die in traffic accidents in their lifetime. One thousand of them will die because of the habit they started today, according to the American Lung Association.

Grade-school smokers

There must be some rule that a teen-age boy's first cigarette is smoked on a dirt path under some power lines. That's where Bryton had his first cigarette. He said the reason he went out to smoke was because he was bored.

"I coughed and hacked. I didn't know how to do it and I just puffed on it without inhaling," he said. "Once I even puked."

Kids start smoking for a variety of reasons, but peer pressure, curiosity or boredom all play a part in why every child starts.

"I liked the taste. I liked the dizziness," Bryton said.

How old was Bryton when he smoked his first cigarette? "Eight," he said.

"Eight? Eight?" asked his mom angrily.

"Eight," he said.

Heather Siemers, program manager for Tobacco Free Thurston County and a group leader for several of the youth smoking classes, said she has talked to kids who started as young as age 6.

"I'm not proud of it, but I started smoking when I was 7 years old," said Gil Jarvela, 81. He says that when he started, people weren't as aware of the health risks involved in smoking.

"My dad had a small tavern way back in those days. When I was 7, I was in the back of the tavern rummaging around and I walked out with a carton of Camel cigarettes," Jarvela said.

He took the carton to an empty lot where the neighborhood kids would gather to play and, before long, all the kids there were smoking a cigarette from his pilfered carton.

"We smoked and smoked and smoked until kids started leaving for home because they were sick," he said. "There were trails of vomit going in all directions."

Easy access

In a Department of Health report on tobacco in the state, students were asked about the availability of cigarettes and how they usually obtained them.

As recently as 1998, 14.7 percent of the underage youth who tried to buy cigarettes were successful in this state.

"I always ask kids in any of the programs where they get their cigarettes," said Siemers. "A lot get them from parents and some from their friends' parents. Some get them from older friends who can buy them."

According to the Department of Health, 80 percent of smokers in middle school and 95.6 percent of smokers in high school said they had easy access to cigarettes. The majority (62.4 percent) of middle school students obtained them from friends.

In contrast, among high school students, half of them said they got their cigarettes from stores. Adult acquaintances were a second important source of cigarettes for middle and high school students.

Bryton's mom smokes and that's where he has gotten most of his cigarettes -- by finding her hiding places and taking one at a time so his parents don't notice any are missing. He has gotten caught a few times by his parents.

"I found a pack of cigarettes in the gutter of our house and it had rained so the cigarettes were ruined," Marene Kenney said. "My neighbor also found an opened pack in her vegetable garden. I confronted him and he admitted taking the packs and trying the cigarettes but said he didn't like them, and we believed him."

Since then, he's gotten caught smoking at school, in his neighborhood and a few places only kids would think to hide out. When he was grounded and not allowed to leave the house, Bryton crawled inside a recycle bin, closed the lid and smoked in there until his mother noticed tendrils of smoke rising from the lid.

When she opened it, he jumped out amid a cloud of smoke and shouted, "Boo!"

Helping young smokers quit

TATU, TRUTH, SPLAT and IN Control are just a few of the local groups aimed at kids who smoke. Bryton is in his second week of IN Control, an 8-week class.

"In the first class, we talked about what happens to you when you smoke a cigarette. We talked about what it does to your body," Bryton said.

Some kids in the classes are there because the court ordered them there for one reason or another -- which is why Bryton is in the class.

IN Control is an 8-week, high-school-based program that is facilitated by Tobacco Free Thurston County staff such as Siemers.

Nearly 90 percent of the students who completed the IN Control class had either quit or reduced their tobacco use. Bryton is no exception. Since he started, he's decided he no longer wants to smoke and has cut down to two cigarettes a week.

Bryton wants to cut his smoking down to one cigarette a week before stopping completely, and his mom said she wasn't going to make it easy for him to sneak a cigarette from her pack. She has faith that he'll quit, though.

"He seems willing to quit," said Marene. "The court can mandate all they want to, but he's never going to quit until he wants to quit."

Jim Carlile writes for The Olympian. He can be reached at 357-0204.

What we know about teen smokers

- Published studies have shown that youths who smoke are likely to have low self-esteem, perceive that tobacco use is normal, have peers and siblings that use and approve of tobacco use and have difficulty refusing offers to use tobacco.

- Youths who smoke also are more likely to use other drugs such as alcohol, have low performance and commitment to school and poor social skills.

- There is compelling evidence that young people today are aware of the health risks associated with tobacco. However, they may not fully comprehend or accept the addiction potential and its effect on their future. For example, among students who were high school seniors during 1976 to 1986, a total of 44 percent of daily smokers believed that in five years they would not be smoking. Follow-up studies have indicated that five to six years later, 74 percent of these people remained daily smokers.

The Olympian Copyright 2000

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