Action on Smoking and Health A National Legal-Action Antismoking Organization Entirely Supported by Tax-Deductible Contributions    Search  | Info About  | ash.org| To Join |  Email Page

Excerpts from: High School Smokes Out Tobacco Users

By Sue Anne Pressley, Washington Post [09/24/00]

John Robert Walker is not saying who, but he knows some fellow athletes at Hoover High School who have quickly shed their
cigarette-smoking or tobacco-chewing habits in recent weeks.

The reason is compelling: The school system here in this prosperous suburb south of Birmingham has just instituted not only
random, mandatory testing for drugs and alcohol among its competing athletes; but also testing for nicotine.

It is the latest and one of the most far-reaching forays in the ongoing national battle to discourage youth from taking up smoking
or the use of other tobacco products. Health officials and others in the anti-tobacco arena say they know of no other place in
the country where such a stringent program has been undertaken, but they predict other schools may soon follow Hoover's
lead.

And they believe that given the choice to puff or play, most athletes are likely to put down their lighters.

"I know some people who have quit because of it," said Walker, a 17-year-old Hoover senior who is an offensive lineman for
the Buccaneers. "People have decided. And it's a real deterrent, too; if you're presented with a situation, 'Do you want
to smoke?' 'No, man, I've got a drug test and I don't know when it's going to be.' It gives people another way to say no."

"It is one thing to talk about grown adults making choices. With impressionable children, it's another question," Schellenbach
said. "Data showed children smoking at younger and younger ages, and the health of children is something that resonates with
the public."

In August, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported some good news on the subject: Smoking among U.S.
high school students finally had dropped slightly after increasing for most of the 1990s.

"While we're seeing an overall decline, there's a big age difference. The biggest decline is in 9th-graders, whereas in
12th-graders, smokers are continuing to increase," said Terry Pechacek, associate director of the CDC's Office on Smoking
and Health. "The students who are less addicted are showing the greatest change. We are starting to see some positive
declines, but we've got a long way to go."

 Right now, he said, nearly 35 percent of high school
students across the country are smoking one or more days within a 30-day period.

"If current smoking rates persist in this country, over 5 million children now under the age of 18 will end up dying prematurely of
a tobacco-related disease and that's a horrendous number," Pechacek said. "Each day, we continue to estimate that more than
3,000 underage youth will start smoking regularly, and that, of those, it's estimated that one of three will die prematurely. We're
talking about a problem of a very large magnitude."

Pechacek applauded states such as Arizona, California, Florida, Massachusetts, Mississippi and Oregon that have launched
school and community programs attacking underage smoking; using everything from billboards to computerized images
appealing to vanity, showing how quickly and badly a young person might age if he or she smoked. The Hoover plan, he said,
is a step in the right direction, adding, "We would encourage them to look at this as one strategy to use in conjunction with
other things."

Already, Hoover students had successfully lobbied the city council here in this city of 65,000 to make sure cigarette vending
machines were away from the public eye and confined to bars and other places where underage youth are not allowed. They
also had gotten a billboard removed from near the high school entrance that showed an attractive young person smoking.

At first, earlier this year, the school system was considering testing only for illegal drugs and alcohol among the 1,500
competing athletes in grades 7 through 12, said Hoover athletic director Ron Swann. But, he said, parents kept asking, "Are
you going to test for tobacco, too?"

After more study, the local school board decided to expand the testing program, set to begin this academic year, to include
nicotine. "The biggest problem in adding it is that when you think of drugs, you don't think of nicotine as mind-altering," Swann
said. "We had a little convincing to do."

With a first offense of testing positive for nicotine, the athlete's parents will be informed, Swann said. For a second offense, the
student will have to participate in a tobacco education program. Three times, and he or she will be forced to miss 25 percent of
their athletic events.

"The only question I've gotten from the athletes is, 'Why are you singling us out?'‚" he said. "And the answer is, 'Because you
are role models. Because you get a little more attention than other students. Because people pay to see you compete.'

Two other Alabama school systems, in Lee and Autauga counties, have just begun voluntary nicotine testing for all students, not
just athletes, giving out identification cards that offer merchandise discounts for students who are smoke-free, said Diane
Beeson, director of the tobacco prevention and control branch for the Alabama Department of Public Health. But no one else
can match Hoover with its mandatory nicotine testing program for athletes, she said.