Smoke Screen

By Amy Dickson

When I was a kid, everybody smoked, not only astronauts and game-show hosts but moms and dads, grandparents and your second-grade teacher. (Who can forget that first glimpse into the smoke-engulfed teachers' lounge?) Smoking was promoted as being cool and grownup. It was what people in the movies did after sex, for instance.

We're supposed to know better now. Tobacco use kills more than 400,000 people a year. So why do more and more kids light up?

The latest statistics show that more than 1 in 3 adolescents is a daily smoker, an increase of 50% in the past decade, and much higher than the smoking rate of 1 in 4 among today's adults. Even if you don't think your high schooler is a nicotine fiend, she is probably hanging around kids who smoke, making it more likely that she will start.

Of course, almost all parents, including those who smoke, have lectured kids on the evils of tobacco. But we forget that teenagers think they're bulletproof. Not even ads trumpeting the risks of impotence from smoking have much effect on hormone-crazed 14-year-old boys. Besides, the tobacco industry has subtly and successfully portrayed smoking--in the face of known health dangers and parental disapproval--as defiant and therefore cool.

Big Tobacco's marketing success, however, is now being turned against it in a way that gives parents new hope. Researchers at the University of Massachusetts studied teens over a period of five years as the state tested a new, edgy antismoking media blitz. The ads were designed not to educate teens about the health risks of smoking (they already know about that) but instead to show them that there is another group of powerful adults, in addition to their parents and teachers, that is trying to tell teens what to think about tobacco. These ads give kids a look at the cynical manipulation behind the targeting of teens by tobacco-marketing campaigns. Kids who saw these ads in Massachusetts were half as likely to smoke as others their age. This ad campaign has spread to Florida and other states. And parents can direct their teens to similar eye-opening material on websites like thetruth.com and cdc.gov/tobacco

Experts caution that tobacco companies "brand" potential young consumers with product giveaways such as hats and T shirts, and that kids who own this merchandise (even if they don't yet smoke) are three times as likely as other kids to try cigarettes. So parents who don't want their kids using tobacco should be wary of any product plastered with tobacco logos.

Parents who suspect that their teens may be smoking should confront them immediately and directly. Assume that your child will deny smoking, but reiterate the rules of the house and the consequences if they're broken. Some parents try to bribe their kids to stay away from tobacco, but that doesn't work. Parents should never pay a kid not to do something he shouldn't be doing anyway.

Parents who smoke can be certain that antitobacco lectures will fall on deaf ears. If you don't want your kid to smoke, you have to quit. Seventy-five percent of the 4 million teen smokers come from homes where a parent smokes--a reminder that kids look to their parents as role models, for better or for worse.

See our website at time.com/personal for more about teen smoking. You can send Amy an e-mail at [email protected]