bacco Control Conference, held in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in July 2002 (sponsored by the University of Michigan Tobacco Research Network, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Ted Klein Youth Tobacco Research Project). This chapter concludes with a discussion of key lessons learned from youth tobacco control efforts that potentially are relevant for youth alcohol policy.

Trends in adolescent smoking typically are monitored in regard to ever smoking (also referred to as “initiation” and defined as having ever tried a cigarette), current smoking (defined as having smoked in the past 30 days), and daily smoking. Trend data regarding current smokers suggest that adolescent smoking increased during the 1960s and into the 1970s. In the late 1970s, rates began a slow yet steady decline that persisted until the late 1980s, when rates started to rise again and continued to rise for most of the decade (Jacobson et al., 2001). Data on high school seniors from 1975 to 2001 (see Figure 16-1) show that current smoking rates rose from 19.4 percent in 1990 to a peak of 24.5 percent in 1997, after which time rates

FIGURE 16-1 Prevalence of smoking in the past 30 days among twelfth graders, 1975-2001.

SOURCE: Data from Monitoring the Future (2002).