Study Says Ads Top Cause of Teen Smoking : Marketing: California youths tell researchers that peer pressure and family examples are not as influential. Tobacco industry spokesman attacks the findings.

Of all the influences that can draw children into a lifelong habit of smoking, cigarette advertising is the most persuasive, according to a survey of California youngsters.

Peer pressure, the example of family members who smoke or a combination of the two are not nearly as powerful in prompting the smoking urge among children 12 to 17, when most start the habit, according to a study in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

“Tobacco marketing is much stronger than peer pressure in getting a youngster to take the first step toward smoking,� said John P. Pierce of UC San Diego, a co-author of the study, at a news conference Tuesday. “It is what starts adolescents down the slippery slope to addiction.�

The study was supported, in part, by the American Heart Assn., one of more than 100 health organizations backing a Food and Drug Administration plan to control cigarette advertising and marketing.

Thomas Lauria of the Tobacco Institute, an industry lobby group, said Pierce’s data “was at best dubious� and amounts to little more than “advertising bashing.�

“This flies in the face of what many government bodies have concluded,� Lauria said.

The study by Pierce is based on interviews with 3,536 California adolescents who had never smoked--not even a single puff. They were asked questions that Pierce said measure a willingness or tendency to begin the smoking habit.

More than half the children said they were familiar with some cigarette brands and ads, and about one in five was eager to own a promotional item, such as a T-shirt, offered by the cigarette companies.

About 84% of the children thought cigarette advertising promotes at least one benefit from smoking. Among the 16- and 17-year-olds, 76.2% said cigarette ads depicted the habit as enjoyable, 73% viewed it as relaxing, 67% as a means of reducing stress and 41% believed advertisements depicted smoking as a way to stay thin.

Forty percent of the nonsmoking youngsters could name a brand of cigarettes they would like to try.

Pierce said the California study shows that children are getting the smoking message from billboards, sports arena ads and merchandise offers.

Pierce found that R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.’s Joe Camel ads were familiar to 60% of the children and were most often nominated in the survey as the favorite cigarette promotion. Camel ads were favored most heavily by the youngest groups, and Marlboro ads increased in popularity with age, he said.