TUSTIN : Anti-Smoking Effort Targets 4th-Graders

His grandmother smokes; so does his mother. And when he was 9 years old, on a friend’s dare, Sunny Flud said he tried taking a few puffs himself.

“I gagged and coughed, like my throat burned,” said Sunny, now 10, a fourth-grader at Marjorie Veeh Elementary School in Tustin. “I immediately gave the cigarette back.”

But experiments like Sunny’s often lead to smoking among adolescents, according to Linda Smith, coordinator of drug, alcohol and tobacco education programs at Tustin Unified School District.

Statistics are not readily available about smoking among children, but Smith said that a recent study at UC Irvine indicated that 10th-graders who are heavy smokers began experimenting with tobacco in the fourth grade.

So for a program to be effective in preventing teen-agers from smoking, it must begin among 9- and 10-year-olds, she said.

That’s the idea behind Pals for Help, which the school district started this year with money from a state grant, Smith said. Under the program, volunteer students from Tustin and Foothill high schools go to fourth-grade classrooms to discuss the harmful effects of tobacco.

The group of eight volunteers have so far reached 400 fourth-graders in four elementary schools, Smith said. About 600 more students in six other schools are expected to attend the discussions in the next few months, she said.

Tuesday, Smith and two teen-age student volunteers were at Veeh Elementary School, hopping from one class to another making presentations.

But instead of lectures, the team put the students in groups and asked each to draw a life-size picture of a smoker, indicating the parts of the body that are affected by tobacco.

“It’s the most effective way to get the students involved,” Smith said.

Sunny giggled Tuesday as his group of six students showed a drawing of Jason, a make-believe teen-ager who smokes.

Jason had bloodshot eyes, sooty brown teeth, and breath that could make a dragon sick, said Victoria Elerding, 10, who was in Sunny’s group as she explained the drawing to the class.

“Bad things can really happen to you if you smoke,” Victoria said.

Classmate Scott Adams, 10, said: “Every kid should see this. I hate smoking. No way will I ever try it.”

Kenny Poole, 9, said he has friends who already are heavy smokers.

Dan Greenwood, 17, a student volunteer, said: “We tell them that a smoker is not necessarily a bad person. The smoker simply has a bad habit that must stop.”

Volunteer Laurie Cast, 19, a Foothill High School senior, said that she thinks 9- and 10-year-olds would rather listen to teen-agers than adults.

“To these kids, (being in) high school is big time, so what we say, I think, sticks in their minds,” Cast said. “It makes me feel good. I feel like I’m making a difference.”