m County between 1986 and 1998, the rate of low-birthweight babies increased from 6.2% of all births to 7.2% (OICA, 2001). Other studies have documented smoking-related somatic and psychiatric morbidity in the adolescent population, even after abstinence treatment (Patten & Others, 2001; Lewis & Others, 1999).
The problem is how to head off health and financial problems attributable to smoking. Because health habits--both good and bad--do not emerge suddenly in adulthood but are formed early in life, shaping healthful behaviors and reducing smoking-related risks to health must begin in childhood and adolescence. Among adolescents, tobacco use and relatively less knowledge of its health effects have been positively correlated (Guinn & Others, 2000; Beiner & Siegel, 2000). Indeed, the development of cognitive coping skills, a general picture of psychological health, and healthful transpersonal relationships among at-risk adolescent smokers has been found to be of equal and/or more importance to successful quitting (and by implication) prevention than the details and structure of given clinical interventions (Siqueira, Rolnitzky, & Rickert, 2001; Windle & Windle, 2001; Whalen & Others, 2001; Colder & Others, 2001).
The need and the opportunity for an appropriate intervention in tobacco use among young people call for engagement with the psychology of adolescence as well as with information that can make a literal difference between life and death. At a time when Oklahoma ranks with the states in which tobacco use persists at a greater rate than the national average, such engagement is a social and public-health imperative.
Despite the availability of information regarding the hazards of tobacco use, many teenagers either lack credible information about those hazards or resist the implications of such information. In part this has been traced to the aggressive marketing efforts of tobacco manufacturers (e.g., Biener & Siegel, 2000)...