FEWER TEEN-AGE STUDENTS SMOKING

SOCIAL ISSUES:But another survey finds about 13 percent of youngsters
in middle school have tried tobacco.

ATLANTA- Smoking among high school students dropped in 1999 for the
first time since the government began keeping track at the start of
the decade. But nearly one in 10 children have already smoked
cigarettes by middle school.

A nationwide survey of 7,529 high school students in September and
October found that 28.4 percent reported using tobacco products in the
preceding month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said
Thursday.

In 1997, the last time the CDC looked at high school smoking, 36.4
percent of students said they had smoked in the preceding month. At
the time, teen smoking was on the rise - at 34.8 percent in 1995,
compared with 27.5 percent in 1991, the first year the CDC started
keeping track.

The CDC said it expected teen-smoking rates to drop - but not by so
much. The agency said differences between the 1999 survey and earlier
studies may have exaggerated the decline.

The questions used in the latest surveys and the one in 1997 were the
same, said Wick Warren, a CDC statistician. But response rates varied.
About 90 percent of schools responded to the 1999 tobacco survey. The
earlier surveys, which also included questions about sex, got
responses from about 75 percent of schools.

"We may have peaked in terms of smoking rates among high school
students," said Michael Eriksen, director of the CDC's Office on
Smoking and Health.

The drop in smoking rates had been expected because tobacco companies
raised cigarette prices about 45 cents a pack last year to help pay
for the $206 billion settlement.

For the first time, the CDC also surveyed middle school students about
smoking, questioning about as many students as in the high school survey.

Nine percent of the students in grades six through eight said they had
smoked cigarettes, Nearly 13 percent said they had used some tobacco
product - including chewing tobacco, pipes and cigars.

The study found that the proportion of blacks smoking in high school
was nearly 16 percent - half the percentage of white smokers. But in
middle school, both racial groups were about 9 percent.