Anti-Smoking Drive Faces Many Barriers : County campaign must overcome bad habits of many cultures. Enlisting community leaders in the much-needed effort to counter tobacco company ads was a good start.

Appealing to people to quit smoking or never start is no easy task even when there is no language or cultural barrier. The challenges become almost mind-boggling in Orange County, where there are dozens of immigrant groups, each with its own smoking customs. For example, in some Asian countries, hosts offer guests a smoke as a gesture of hospitality. In Cambodia, a bride lights her groom’s cigarette as a part of the wedding ceremony. And in many Asian societies, the men are part of a military structure in which smoking is a way of life.

The problem of how to change these and other deeply rooted attitudes toward smoking is what Orange County officials are considering as they prepare to launch a $2.9-million anti-smoking campaign. The effort is being financed with funds from the 25-cents-per-pack tax imposed on Jan. 1, 1989, with the passage of Proposition 99.

A hard-hitting, $28.6-million advertising effort aimed at teen-agers, women and minorities is already under way statewide. Those groups are most heavily targeted by the tobacco industry as it tries to retain and recruit smokers. Those groups also have high smoking rates despite a 20% decline among adults in the United States in the last two decades. The tobacco industry spends an estimated $2.6 billion annually--with perhaps a tenth of it in California--on advertising.

In Orange County, the anti-smoking effort will be a community-based program. In large part, it will focus on opinion leaders and role models in individual minority communities who, it is hoped, can influence others to quit.

However, a message that works with one group may be offensive to another, so care must be taken to fashion the campaign with sensitivity. The county also plans to hold seminars, distribute educational materials and set up a 24-hour multilingual hot line for smokers and relatives. “It’s going to be extremely challenging to try to reach out,” said Nampet Panichpant-M, director of immigrant services for the county Health Department and one of the coordinators of the anti-smoking campaign.

But, no matter how difficult, it must be done. Smoking has for too long and in too many cultures taken a terrible toll on health and on health care costs. The state’s anti-smoking campaign may not reverse that immediately, but it’s a step toward counteracting the tobacco industry’s advertising. And a program of reaching out to minority community leaders is a correct approach in Orange County.