THE LOCAL ANGLE: YOUTH SMOKING AT 12% IN STATE

According to the most recent data available from the California Department
of Health Services, nearly 12 percent of state youth reported smoking
within a month of a survey taken in 1996.

That survey did not include questions about smokeless tobacco or cigars,
although a separate poll did find that 4 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds
smoked cigars within the previous month and 1 percent of that age group
chewed tobacco.

There is no way to determine the overlap in the surveys, said department
spokesman Ken August.In Sacramento County, most school districts quit
surveying students after 1995, when 36 percent of high school freshmen
reported smoking within the last year, and 21 percent smoked in the last
month.

The same survey showed 34 percent of high school juniors had smoked within
the last year and 20 percent smoked within the last month, according to
Cindy Jones, project specialist for the county superintendent of schools'
tobacco use education program.

Jones said new surveys are being written that would measure cigar and
smokeless tobacco use in addition to cigarettes.

Copyright ) 1998 The Sacramento Bee