The First Puff

He had seen his dad do it.

He had seen the ads (“Winston tastes good . . . like a cigarette should.”).

He was exposed to the image: cool.

It was sticky, sultry summertime in rural Louisiana--a time ripe for rebellion. So a 14-year-old Zebba Kelly sucked on the end of a 3-inch Winston and let out a mad cough. “Then I smoked a little bit more,” he recalls, “and it was much better.”

Cool.

That was 40 years ago. Today, you can still find Kelly puffing on break from his security job outside the Ronald Reagan State Office Building in downtown Los Angeles. These days Kelly doesn’t think it’s so cool. “Smoking’s no good,” he says in a bluesy, raspy voice.

“It’s dope,” says the pack-a-day smoker sitting on a bench under 85-degree sunshine. “You get high for a few minutes.”

It is that first puff, tobacco industry critics say, that can lead to a lifetime of smoking and subsequent health problems. While some choke and never return, others get past the first-timer’s cough and light up again.

“I was 15. I smoked Viceroy. It was what all the kids were smoking,” says Queen Malkah, a 57-year-old community activist from South-Central L.A.

Among those, young and old, who recently recalled their first smoking experiences, nearly all said they started smoking before they turned 20, and all could remember what brand they first smoked.

“In the South we were in high school sororities and you smoked to be cool,” says a 50-year-old Los Angeles City Council aide who did not want her name used. “I smoked Newport menthol.

“When my mother caught me,” she continues, “she made me smoke a whole pack in front of her. . . . Those were the days when we didn’t know about the problems.”

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Smoking in the Western world started as a pastime for aristocratic elders when the Mexican cigarette found its way to Europe and then the U.S. during the 17th and 18th centuries. Mass production in the late 19th century brought cigarettes to the masses, then advertising in the 20th century, it seems, brought them to the young and fashion-conscious. (A 1926 advertisement for Chesterfield cigarettes depicts an attractive young woman saying, “Blow some my way.”)

These days smoking opponents contend that the relationship between advertising and first puff is well established. A recent study out of UC San Diego found that tobacco marketing is a stronger pull than peer pressure when it comes to the first puff, and that the relationship between the first few cigarettes and addiction is a matter of science. Another study puts the threshold for addiction at more than 5 milligrams of nicotine a day or about five cigarettes.

Tobacco industry opponents argue that advertising is the fuel that gets young Americans to light up for a lifetime.

“Most youths will say advertising doesn’t affect them,” says Joe Tye, executive officer at Stop Teen-Age Addiction to Tobacco, a Massachusetts-based think tank and lobby. “But they most often smoke the three most advertised brands--Marlboro, Camel and Newport.”

It is with this background that President Clinton announced last month historic new anti-smoking measures that range from banning most vending machine sales to limiting cigarette advertising to black-and-white text. “With this historic action . . , “ Clinton said, “Joe Camel and the Marlboro Man will be out of our children’s reach forever.”

Tobacco companies respond that they will defend their rights--particularly those regarding free speech and advertising--all the way to the Supreme Court. These rules, says a representative of the Tobacco Institute, the industry lobby, “are illegal and they will not work to reduce youth smoking.”

But clearly tobacco advertising reaches into the prime of teendom--the time when at least 80% of smokers take their first hit.

“The first time I smoked,” recalls a 17-year-old Santa Monica High School student, “it gave me a mad head rush.”

He did not want to give his name. “My mom would whip me if she found out,” he says as he puffs on a Newport with a group of friends on Pico Boulevard after school.

He was 12 when he first started smoking. And as do many of his teenage peers, according to some recent studies, he underestimates smoking’s power of addiction and its hazards. (Only 5% of high school seniors who smoke think they’ll still be smoking in five years; 75% still end up smoking, however, in that time.) “I’m addicted,” he says, “but I’m strong. . . . I got strong lungs.”

The young smoker is African American and represents one of the fastest growing segments of smokers--black teenage boys. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study released last year found that while teen smoking grew more than 7 percentage points since 1991, smoking among African American boys doubled during the same period. Smoking foes once again blamed advertising for targeting groups critics say are particularly vulnerable: kids and minorities.

They say the industry--anticipating new limits on traditional advertising--has found a new way to appeal to teens: catalog merchandise that can be obtained only through proof-of-purchase programs such as “Camel Cash” and “Marlboro Miles.”

“We really feel that’s one of the industry’s main avenues to target teens,” Tye says. Tobacco industry officials say such arguments are dubious.

There are many who try smoking and drop it quickly.

Coffield Appiah, 27, experimented with cigarettes in his backyard with his little brother one summer when he was 10, but never took to smoking: “Someone gave a carton of generic cigarettes to my father. He put it in his top drawer. It broke open and we smoked some for maybe a month. I thought it would look good to blow smoke out of your mouth.”

Appiah, now a clerk at the Wine House in West Los Angeles, says he didn’t continue smoking because his father found out the cigarettes were missing. “Cigarettes weren’t readily available,” he says, “and I didn’t feel it was right.”

Cigarette makers blame smoking trends on peers and family, and, indeed, first-puff tales also reveal plenty of family influence and peer pressure.

“My cousin gave one to me at the beach when I was 5,” says 17-year-old Santa Monica High School student Jimmy Coder. “I got addicted when I was 12.”

“I was 13 and my girlfriend was smoking at the time,” recalls classmate Dizzy, 18. “We were chilling out behind my girl’s house.”

“My grandma smoked,” says a 19-year-old Westside restaurant manager. “One day me and my friend took a couple of cigarettes and snuck around back.”

She was 12 at the time.

“My mom smoked,” says 20-year-old beauty school student Dana Knetge. “I started on my 18th birthday. For me it started as a social thing. I was drunk. I was in the backyard of my house. I coughed.

“From then on, when I was partying or drinking,” she says, “I would smoke.”

“For me it was a social thing,” adds friend Tesha Thornell, 17. “Newport is what my boyfriend smoked. I started when I was 15.”

“I could quit if I wanted to because I’m strong,” she says. “But I don’t want to.”

* GET THE FACTS: The numbers behind the risks. E3