STUDY: CANDY CIGARETTES TIED TO SMOKING

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, January 7, 1992                   TAG: 9201070146
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHAPEL HILL, N.C.                                LENGTH: Short
STUDY: CANDY CIGARETTES TIED TO SMOKING
Children use candy cigarettes as "smoking toys" and often associate them with mature or illicit behavior, says a professor who published a pair of studies on candy cigarettes.
The study, which was conducted by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, shows children who buy candy cigarettes are twice as likely to try tobacco cigarettes later in life.
"Parents and public health professionals would not sanction toy marijuana joints or crack cocaine," the study concluded. "Similarly, toy cigarettes should not be allowed to enter into children's play."
"It's distressing when we say that we don't want children to smoke, yet there are all these sort of inappropriate messages out there that make it more likely that they will," said Dr. Jonathan Klein, an assistant professor of pediatrics at UNC-Chapel Hill.
The survey questioned 195 seventh-graders in Chapel Hill and Charlottesville, Va. It found 36 percent of those who had purchased candy cigarettes more than once later smoked cigarettes. Only 15 percent of students who said they bought candy cigarettes once or not at all said they smoke.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB