Sarah Bond, 16, said she's smoked since the sixth grade because "it was just around me a lot." Her mother smokes and so did her grandmother, now dead, she said.
They didn't like her smoking, she said, "but they know I'm gonna do it no matter what."
But Bond has cut down from about a pack a day to half a pack since attending a stop-smoking group taught by Matt Gregory for the American Cancer Society.
"It's too expensive, not good for me and it's also embarrassing," she said. "People walk past me and give me dirty looks."
Gregory, 36, asked the students to decide by next week's class how they want to quit. The best way is "cold turkey," although "whatever works" is fine, he said. Tapering off and postponing to reduce the number of daily smokes are other methods, he said.
Gregory teaches the no-smoking course whenever 15 to 20 students express an interest.
He also works at Aliamanu Intermediate School as a counselor for Adolescent Substance Abuse Counseling Services, a division of Science Applications International Corp. The company offers teen-agers substance abuse counseling under an Army contract for family members.
Velma Tanahara, Mililani special motivations teacher and school health services coordinator, works with Gregory for Mililani's no-smoking courses.
He began the four-week sessions about a year ago and figures about 25 of his 60 students quit smoking. "Others said they would use the principles to attempt to quit."
Gregory is concerned about reaching teen-agers, noting most people say that's when they started smoking.
Advertising, peer pressure and weight control are among contributing factors, he said.
Working with teens for a dozen years as a therapist, he said he's seen that tobacco is "a gateway drug" to other drugs and alcohol.
"Once a teen-ager has broken certain boundaries with their own physical health, where they are now smoking tobacco through their lungs, it is an easier step to smoke marijuana and not really talk about physical consequences."
Also, kids who hide and smoke cigarettes end up often in the same places where marijuana smokers are hiding out to get high, he said.
Many of his students are referred by the Teen Health Services operated on campus by the Wahiawa General Hospital. All students in the present class said their parents know they smoke.
Gregory said he's never smoked while Tanahara said she smoked up to two packs a day. She quit 25 years ago. "I decided I didn't want to be a smoking mom."
In a show-and-tell talk yesterday, Gregory displayed bottles of ugly cancerous organs taken from patients who died.
"This isn't for the faintest of heart," he commented, pointing to a set of discolored, broken teeth with cancerous gums and tongue. Labeled "Mr. Gross Mouth," it's used to demonstrate the effects of chewing smokeless tobacco products.
A lung machine shows how a healthy human lung looks when it's breathing; then one laboring to breath with emphysema, and one barely breathing with lung cancer.
"Is this real stuff in here?" asked one horrified student.
Students were aghast when Gregory pulled out a cigarette and started to light it. Instead of put
ting it in his mouth, however, he stuck it with a bunch of other cigarettes in a jar of water.
At the end of the class, he held the jar up and asked if anyone was thirsty. The water was dirty brown from tar, nicotine and poisons.
Courtney Perreira, a junior who has smoked on and off since eighth grade, said she goes outside her house and smokes after getting dressed for school, then she brushes her teeth.
She and other students said they have no problem getting cigarettes.
Bond earns money baby-sitting her 2-year-old twin brother and sister and other families' children.
Perreira said her parents give her money when she goes out and she always buys cigarettes. "This one store, they don't really card anybody." If they do, she just asks somebody else to buy them for her, she said.
More each day: More than 3,000 young people start smoking every day in the United States - more than a million new smokers annually.Lifelong problem: More than 90 percent of adult smokers began as teen-agers and 44 percent of adolescents experiment with or regularly use tobacco products. The smoking rate among Hawaii adolescents is greater than the rate among adults.
Experimenting: By 12th grade in Hawaii, 69 percent of students report having tried cigarettes.
No enforcement: Last year, Hawaii minors were able to buy tobacco in 43 percent of over-the-counter outlets despite a state law prohibiting sales to anyone under 18 years old.
Growing problem: The percentage of Hawaii high school students who smoke one or more days a month has increased from 28.2 percent in 1993 to 32.4 percent last year.
Gender: More females than males smoke before age 13. By high school, about 30 percent of girls smoke, compared to 26 percent of boys.
Second chance: Two-thirds of adolescents who smoke report trying to quit and 70 percent report they wouldn't start smoking if they had the choice again.
Other drugs: Students who smoke are three times more likely than nonsmokers to use alcohol, eight times more likely to use marijuana and 22 times more likely to use cocaine.
Early start: Of high school students who smoke, 85 percent report starting by age 15.
Source: Hawaii Department of Health