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Excerpts from Many Trying Tobacco in Grades 6-8; Survey Is a First For Middle Schools

By Marc Kaufman, Washington Post [01/28/00]

The first national survey of tobacco usage in middle schools has found that one in eight students are experimenting with it--the first hard evidence that many children pick up the habit even before they attend high school.

While cigarettes were the most popular choice--with almost 10 percent smoking them within the past month--surprisingly high numbers of middle school students smoked cigars, bidis and kreteks, inexpensive tobacco products from Asia scented with chocolate, mango or cloves.

The new findings from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, collected in collaboration with the American Legacy Foundation, also came to the conclusion that African American middle school students were using tobacco at the same rate as whites and Hispanics. This was a unpleasant surprise, researchers said, because considerably fewer African American youngsters have traditionally used tobacco.

The survey found that almost 35 percent of high school students use tobacco in some form.

"The study appears to confirm that there has been a meaningful drop in tobacco use in teens over the past two years," said Matthew L. Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "But still, smoking rates remain at near record levels."

While public health officials have been increasingly concerned about the growing teenage use of non-cigarette tobacco, there had been few statistics to prove it. Eriksen said the survey showed that cigar use (15 percent in high school and 6 percent in middle school) was "of epidemic proportions," and that teenage smoking of bidis and kreteks (both about 5 percent in high school and 2 percent in middle school) is widespread.

**For the study results go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42408-2000Jan28.html