Teens Against Tobacco

Although the facts are in regarding the addictiveness of nicotine, the lethal consequences of tobacco, and the cigarette industry's decades-long cover-up, American teens - many of them presumably rational in other respects - continue to think it cool to light up.

In 1998, however, East Hampton High School students and administrators, joining in a national project promoted by the American Cancer Society, the American Lung Association, and the American Heart Association, plan to fight fire with fire.

School officials have begun organizing large numbers of older students who, later this winter, will begin talking to younger teens here about the very real dangers of smoking. They will use "smoking machines" to demonstrate the deleterious effects on the lungs and circulatory system of inhaling cigarette smoke, filtered or no. The goal of the project, called Teens Against Tobacco Use, is to attain a "smoke-free" high school class of 2000 across the country.

Locally, tobacco use is reportedly high among this year's sophomores. If those in their early teens could be persuaded by their peers not only of tobacco's toxicity but also of the blithe unconcern that prompts the suggestion to smoke, they might well be able to resist. "If you are my friend," the response might be, "why is it that you want me to take up an addictive habit that in all likelihood will kill me and perhaps even some of those I'm close to?" And further: "Why are you hurting yourself?" And further: "Let me help you."

Teens Against Tobacco Use also suggests that high-schoolers, besides arming younger students with the facts and means to resist tobacco, lobby for "increases in excise taxes on tobacco products," demand the "enforcement of laws prohibiting tobacco sales to anyone under the age of 18," and work to "eliminate cigarette vending machines" among other things.

Eliminating vending machines - which provide minors with easy access to cigarettes - and monitoring compliance with I.D. requirements by convenience stores and gas stations would further attest to the effectiveness of East Hampton's new group.