Teen Smokers in O.C. Light Into Clinton’s Plan

President Clinton’s call Wednesday to raise cigarette prices by as much as $1.50 a pack to dissuade kids from lighting up brought nods of approval from public health leaders in Orange County. But the teen smokers’ take on the plan was a unanimous sneer.

Youths will cheat, steal, starve and mooch off rich friends before they give up the habit, a group of Los Alamitos High School students said.

“We spend our lunch money on cigarettes,” said a 16-year-old from Los Alamitos, who migrated with a group of other teenagers to a local strip mall to smoke on her lunch break.

“I’d rather smoke than eat any day,” she said. “I don’t think it’s gonna make anyone stop smoking. It’s just gonna make us stop eating.”

The 10th-grader, who like other youths declined to give her name for fear of discovery by school officials and family, has smoked for three years. Sky-high prices on cigarettes might deter kids who don’t yet smoke, but for her set, she said, it’s too late.

“We’re addicted. We don’t do it because we think it’s cool anymore,” she said, adding that increasing the price “may increase crime. I know friends who will steal them.”

As the House of Representatives voted unanimously Wednesday to rescind a recently enacted $50-billion tax break for cigarette makers, Clinton called on the industry to work harder to salvage the landmark tobacco deal. He focused on reducing the number of kids who smoke through a price hike, a measure most experts consider fundamental to that effort.

“The bottom line is, if you can increase the cost of a package of cigarettes, kids are less likely to smoke and adults are probably going to smoke less,” said Marilyn Pritchard, coordinator of the Tobacco Use Prevention Program of the Orange County Health Care Agency.

“Unfortunately, it’s a temporary decrease unless you can follow it with a comprehensive education and media campaign.”

California has strong educational campaigns, and results to show they work, Pritchard said.

According to the National Institutes of Health, 25.5% of adults smoked nationwide in 1996. The state figure for 1996 is 18.1%, and Orange County’s prevalence rate was 15.3%.

However, certain groups remain much more likely to light up than others. A recent survey conducted for the state Department of Health Services showed that smoking rates among Asian Americans had not declined in the past three years.

The Vietnamese Community of Orange County, a Santa Ana-based social services group, recently received a $299,000 grant from the state to design a smoking prevention program for Asian Americans.

In addition to Asian/Pacific Islanders, young white females also are more likely to smoke, Pritchard said. And in general, younger people are more likely to smoke than older adults.

“We’re not doing so well with younger adults,” Pritchard said. “Prevalence among youth has been rising over the last few years.”

Statistics for Orange County minors were not available Wednesday, Pritchard said. However, data from the Orange County Health Care Agency show that 17- and 18-year-olds had a smoking rate close to 18% in Orange County, while 14.7% of people over 30 smoked in 1996.

“We’re not going to price it out of the market,” Pritchard said of the proposed price hike. “But especially young kids only have so much spending money, and the longer we can delay their onset the better chance we have of stopping them from getting hooked.”

The average “age of onset” for a teen smoker is 13, Pritchard said.

Among youth, however, Clinton’s efforts to price cigarettes out of their range fell flat.

Even Racquel, 14, a Los Alamitos High School track athlete who does not smoke, said she thought Clinton was “an idiot”

Dan, 16, of Seal Beach, said hiking the price by $1.50 a pack “is just dumb,’ because “there are probably more adults who smoke than kids.”

Besides, noted 15-year-old Heather Torres of Seal Beach: “It’s actually easier for teenagers to get money than it is for some adults.”

And for those who can’t scrape up the cash?

“There’s always some kid who has a ton of money and they’ll be happy to give you” a cigarette, said one 15-year-old girl.

“If it’s $1.50 more you might just go a little longer without having a pack. But you’ll bum one from someone,” she said, puffing on a Marlboro that she plucked from a friend’s pack.

Stepped-up efforts to deter teen smoking have proved a bit of an annoyance, they conceded. Los Alamitos police often stop in at the mini-mall hangout to hand out citations to minors in possession of tobacco. One of those can mean a $75 fine and 100 hours of community service.

A 17-year-old from Rossmoor got a similar fine in Huntington Beach. His parents know he smokes and can’t do a lot to stop him (they smoke too), but they did make him pay the fine, he said.

“They can raise [the price], but if you’ve been smoking long enough, you’re gonna find a way,” he said. “You can start rolling them yourself. It’s cheaper.”

And some of the kids said they’ve been carded by merchants but were sold cigarettes with a wink and nod even after they showed their IDs, which prove they’re underage.

“For the teenagers now,” Andy said, “it’s too late.”