Results of a national survey point to a rise in cigarette smoking among high-school students — for the fifth year in a row.

Between 1995 and 1996, the percentage of students reporting any cigarette smoking in the 30 days prior to the survey rose by about 10 percent among eighth- and 10th-graders. Since 1991, the proportion reporting smoking in the prior 30 days has risen by nearly one-half among the eighth-graders (from 14 percent to 21 percent) and 10th-graders (from 21 percent to 30 percent), according to the "Monitoring the Future Study," by University of Michigan researchers Lloyd Johnston, Patrick O'Malley and Jerald Bachman.

Among the 12th-graders the proportional increases have been less, but still appreciable. Current smoking (i.e., smoking in the prior 30 days) rose by more than one-fifth since 1991, from 28 percent to 34 percent, among individuals in this group, although the increase in the most recent year was only 0.5 percent.

These rates are impressively high, especially when compared to the fact that about 25 percent of all adults are classified as current smokers, the researchers noted.

"Because young people tend to carry the smoking habits they develop in adolescence into adulthood, the substantial and continuing increases in teen smoking bode ill for the eventual longevity and health of this generation of American young people," said Johnston. "Hundreds of thousands of children from each graduating class are likely to suffer appalling diseases, and to die prematurely, as a result of the smoking habits they are developing in childhood and adolescence.

Substantial increases in smoking have been occurring in virtually every sociodemographic group — among boys and girls, among those bound for college and those not, among respondents in all regions of the country and in urban and rural areas, among all socioeconomic levels, and among those in the three major racial/ethnic groups (white, African American and Hispanic American), the investigators said.

"No one's kids are safe from this resurgence in smoking," Johnston warned, "so all parents should be concerned and alerted.

Johnston attributes the upturn in smoking to broad cultural influences, such as massive advertising and promotional efforts by the tobacco industry, and extensive portrayal of smoking by role models in the media, particularly in movies.

Young people also continue to report cigarettes as being easily available to them: 77 percent of the eighth-graders said cigarettes would be "very easy" or "fairly easy" for them to get, and 91 percent of the 10th-graders said the same thing.

There also has been a steady decline since the early '90s in the proportions of youngsters saying they disapprove of pack-a-day smoking. Since 1991, the proportion of eighth-graders saying they disapprove fell from 83 percent to 77 percent, while the proportion of 10th-graders disapproving of this habit fell from 79 percent to 72 percent and the proportion of 12th-graders, from 71 percent to 67 percent. The proportion off 12th-graders disapproving of pack-a-day smoking is at its lowest level since 1978, the researchers noted.

Moreover, many youngsters do not see a great risk in smoking that much, they found. In 1996, only 50 percent of the eighth-graders said that a pack-a-day smoker runs a great risk of harming him- or herself "physically or in other ways," while only 58 percent of the 10th-graders and 68 percent of the 12th-graders reported seeing such a risk.

"As we have seen, a great deal of smoking is initiated at a very young age, when youngsters seem to be least aware of the dangers," said Johnston.