welcome to "beyondhe headlines." i'm carheryl jennings. from cancer to heart disease and of course, the dangers of secondhand smoke and every single day near 4,000 young people under thege of 18 smoke a cirette for the first tie. according to the centers for disease control anrevention the cdc also reports that nearly 13% of the adult population in california a currently smokers, and that is more than 3 million people. 69% of smokers in the united states doant to quit

completely. the impact of sming tobacco is clearly dangerous, but a fascinating recent study suggests tobacco's hioric use in california may actuly stretch back far longer than researchers believe. it's abc 7's carolyn johnson. >> this is the type that got us all started. >> if arceologist, she's certainly fascinating by it. shspent tracing the earliest use of the people of cifornia and the pacific coast. >> tobaccon the united states was present 8,000 or 10,000 years ago and hunter gatherers probably figured out the special properties of the plant quite eay. >> she says the clues were burn into ancient pipes and some found in nearly priste conditions during digs at the swiss river basin near the oregon border and another undisclosed site here in the b area first to document what was being smoked and when. he colleagues at uc davis used

test pipes tolant different species. th were able to compare it to the residue still in stone pipes. >> the residue inside the spaces will preserve over thousands of yes, relatively unchanged. >> so when we started obining positive results, it was a very exciting thing. >> still,for more accuracy, the microscopic samples were analyzed usingdvanced technology including glass tomography and glass spectrometers. allen runs the lab at the eugene resource center. >> you have to look at the different fragment of it it so that you caneally identify which cpound it was. the verdict? tobacco and they say the evidence suggests that native americans in northern california, smoked it more than a thousandyears ago and phaps cultivated it for centies, far earlier than first imagined. although it'sikely they consumed it much less frequently and for a differt purpose from

smoking as w know it today. it was more of a cemonial and ritual, and itoccurred in a ceremonial and ritual context that has roots deep, deep in ti. >> carolyn johnson, abc 7 news. those researchers say that early tobacco had much less nicotine content than today's cigarettes and researchers ho that data can be used future studies learn whether the early ritual smoking could have produced health effects. joining me in the studio to shed light on the currt realis of smoking risk for the entire bay area. there's serena chin and she's the regional director for the american lung assoction. >> thanks for being here. it's great to be here. >> this is your passion. talked abouthat number of 13% of californians smokig, but it used to be a lot higher. it usedo be 22%, 33% of californians smoked. >> so something is working? >>absolutely. when the first tobac tax passed it fund a huge health

education program that has spread throughout the state and cities and counties have jumped on the bandwagon because everye wanted to be part of getting rid of the tobacc epidemic. so cities and counties started passing sme-free ws. >> i want to get back to that in a moment, but you're talking aut education and i don't think a lot of people realize how dangerous it is the secondnd smoke is. >> that's how manynon-smoking ericans die prematurely from secondhand smoke and that's about losg 13 to 14 years of their life. >> and what does it do to somebody? >> well, most of us know what it feels like to be suddenly exposed to secondhand smoke. youstart sneezing and eyeses water. for people who are sensitive leak people with asthma might trigger the asthma attack and you would start feeling t congestion in your chest

thtness and then have an attack later on where you are really having it d then you have to take medicaon. more long-term effects could be, u know, have en shown to be lung cancer and tn the other amazing pce of data that has come out is as little as 30 minus of being exposed in a smoky room can cause a fatal heart attack in a non-smoker. so the heartimpact is more immediate and, of course, devastating. >> we also hear about this rase which is new, irdhand smoke. >> thirdhand smoke is something we a knew about and someone ga it a catchy rm. it's when you don't see the smoking, but you know the smoking has happened and it's more likesecondhand smoke. researchers discovered what happens when you have

smoked-in room, and y leave it and don't smoke in the room and you come back and test the afr d some of the research has shown t the air is more toxic 21 days after the sking happened >> -- wow! >> -- in the room. who is most at ri? i would imagine children and people with compromised immune system? >> of course, children with the residual secondhand smoke or thirdhand smoke it can turn into a dust a carcinogenicust and kids crawl on floors and stick the hands inheir mouth a lot doctors are deeply concerned abo the ki of nicotine and carcinogen that younghildren are picking up and putting in their mouth. the other people are people with chronic disease. cancer survivors and heart patients people with asthma, copd and some fos don't realize that sendhand smoke can't make it worse for people with diabetes. >> oh, my goodness.

we talked about education and the laws that are making people move to other -- so wat are the smoking laws and wher do people smoke if they do want to smoke? we're not in the business of offering up places and we're basically looking at unwanted econdhand smoke. >> okay. >> basically, in a l of our cities especially here in the bay area we've gone beyond inside the workplace. we have doorway bfer zone laws anywhere from 15 to 25 feet away from doorways. we have outdoor dining laws where in some cities youcan't smokehere you're outdoor dining, bus stops and t most controversial one might be banning smoking insid multi-unit housing. >> all right. serena, we are out of te and i areciate all of the insight and information. thank you veryuch for what you're doing. >> thank you for having me. >> all right. we do have to take ahort break. when we come back wll learn about the dangerous cnection between smoking a lung

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> welcome back toeyond the headlines." we are talking about the risks of smoking tobacco. american women have caught up to men in terms of risk of death from smoking. women are starting to smoke earlier and they're lighting up more often than they did decades ago. it hit a plateau in the 1980s, but for women it's still risg. researchers say the risk of dying of lung cancer 25 times higher for smokerehan for women who have ner smoked. dr. david jennings is the program director of the forensic oncology lab at the university of california san francisco. it's grea to s you because we've been working it together r several years.

i appreciate your expertise. >> for those folks that don' understand the risk of smoking, it doesn't just aect the lungs. it's body. >> right. cheryl, it's great to be her and thank you so mucfor your help and advocacy to get the word out. smoking is a total body phenomenon and you inhale it throu the best drug delivery organ we ve which is the multiple football field size rway space of the lung and the cainogens are absorbe very quickly and they travel througut the body and they wreak havoc throuout the lungs regarding ncer and also the poorly combusted smoke anthe copd and the emphezema is a minant problem and it causes peipheral vascular disease. if it weren for the nicotine buzz, nobody would do it. >> i watched this in my own family because parents both smoked and like a lot of people i grew up in a smoking household. i can only imagine. i'm wondering if that affects

people's intellectual development when you are a kid and exposed to that. >> you see the dmages and the side e tekts and not to mention in the first few cigarette puffs you ever take you start gaggi and coughing. nobody puts their mouth on the exhaust pipe to get the carbon monoxide. it's all about the drug delivery and bigtobacco has known that l along and nally, the trut is being aired and people are realizing that people are trying hard to quit. it's hard to quit,ust hard to stay off cigarettes for good. >> saw that in my own family. some did and some didn't. a new trend are e-cigarettes and what are ose and how does that affect them? >> we don't know what the impacts will be regarding all of these other total body effects. it's a way to give you the nicote satisfaction so then you don'tight up tobacco which carries the carcinogens.

so the idea is you would at lea be spared much of the carcinogen load which would reduce significantlyhe rick of emfa zeema and lung cancer. >> you see people who come to you who have aariety of iseases, mostly lung cancer? >> thoracic maling nancy and is in this country and worldwide is lung cancer. 90% of the time it's lung cancer anwe specialize in the bleak and challenging tumors like mesotheoma and lung cancer. >> i thnk that people might be surprised that t survival rates of people being diagnosed with with lung cancer is just 15%. >> right. it's horrible andit hasn't changed in 40 yearsnd that's why you and we and bonnie and everyone else gets up and goes outo change the dog, and break the stigma and alsodo awareness and we have made progress. we ve ct screening. it took us a decade to get that approved and it's finally

approved through cms. it took a $200 million study and 50,000 pati and smokers have the ct scan and show that t ct scan is a 25% mor preventle death over justuiing a lobe and that proved 50,000 patients in nine months. >> you mentioned bonnie now, for folks that n't know bonnie, she'srom the cancer foundation. you walked into my clinic and you fixed r. >> stage three lung cancer. >> she had 3b in a trekkie spot. she's a fighter and we're a can-do team a we built a program and she was in the thoracic oology program and she realized she could do me on herown and started foundationhat i helped her start and the rest has been history and she's been trying to change the perpective on lung cancer and drive awarene and build novel cnical trials and

novel approaches because, you know, it's never a good time, obviously, to have cancer but it's alst a good time because we're on the cusp of what i think areramatic changes. >> in just a moment, we do is to take a break in just a

>> welcome back to "beyond the headlines." califnia has the second lowest pulation of smokers in the united states, but the dangers of sming remain a huge

concern. we are joined by dr. david joplin. he's the program director of the thoracic oncology lab at th university of california san francisco. and you started to talk about a lotf changes, improvementsand ways of treating lung disease. >> well, it's happening for lung disease, for biology in general, we are with precision medicine which is a buzz word. it hasn't quite lived up to the excitement yet, but it it wil it's just a matter of time and technogy and that is the idea of understanding whether it's a cancer of the lung or the colon or the breast and not of the organ and the pathways and the gnaling and the stem cell it came from and t carcinogens and other exposuress we as other diseases and emphysema and we cannterrogate these issue fishes and if you, god forbid, are diagnosed with a cancer and it is so important because we can learn so much about the tumor and direct and then guide the therapy based on that. >> you can design a therapy just

for that particular tumor? >> right. exactly, so the excitement around these designer therapies or personalized medicine, because clearly that' where it needs to be. no two tumors are the same and it didn't have a familial history and no two tumors are the same even though ty're lumped together d whether they're breast, colon or lung and that these abnormalities and am preification can be targeted and in theesearch laperrres, people are going at full throttle t find novel targets or antibodies that can be very selective to the cancer of that organ? >> one of the this woe just roll out something called t-790

m. and the gdfr gene and in particular, women who have nevered, not necessaly the 270 mu advertising is what trips that cancer. a jeff ox for in boston is ready to do a study looking to see if we can masure in your blood in the germ line dna, in other rds, all of the cells in your body and not just a lung biopsy and whether you harbor this mute asian and mu advertising, and preliminary data looks prett tantalizing. >> and they are still accepting families who ha lung cancer. >> correct. >> i have ten seconds left, dr. joplin. for people concerned about havingung cancer, what suld

they do, real willy quick? >> they should talk to their doctor. if they're over 50, and sked previously, they should think about ct screening. if theymoked they should have stopped smoking and then they can go to ourweite and see what kind of exciting research weir doing at t. >> that is it for this segment, but city wuz, please and we'll talk aut

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welcome back to "beyond headlin" i'm cheryl jennings. they druggel with ways to do it. a recent survey warns that children and teens are incrsingly trying electronic cigarettes. the devices turn liquid nicotine into aapor that smokers inhale. the centers for disease control found that in 201210% of high school students admitted they have tried e cigarette, up from 4% the yearbefore. 2% of middle school students also experimented with these battery-powered devices up from 1%. many say they never smoked real cigarette. >>t's very concerning because nicotine is incredibly addictive

and onc you get someone hooked on an e cigarette. will they switch over it it a regular cigette? we don't know the answer ad until you answer that you don't want to get these productsnto the hands of children. >>the the food andrug administration is expected to announce a plan to start reg r lating e-cigarettes just li other tobacco products. joining us in t studio on suggestions for ways to kick the habit is rosalynn moya and tobacco coordinator at an dolescent treatment center in alameda count pep thank you for being here today. >> thank y. i'm also co-chair for the tobacco-free coalition and the other drug network. >>ou busy lady. >> tell us abt the work you do for the tobacco-free coalition. well, i work also with teens and i do aot of group in high school to help high school students who want to quit. some ofhem may come -- they

may come in for information or they just might want to reduce their cigarettes d if they want, i can help them to quit. >> you go out into the community, right some. >> i go to all of the high schools that wantme to come there and do qui groups. it's a contact with the deparent of education and the unified school rict. they want to have us come out there. >> and you mentioned that you work with young people who are trying quit. it must be so hard because everyone i've ever known w tried to quit, half caandthe other can't. it's toh. >>hat's why when they come to the group iry to make it a very welcoming environment, and have pizza. we recognize their desire to want to quit becauset's a great thing to want to do that and to care about their health. >> what's the first step. basically, i wnt to what they get out of it, their goals and i

pretend to be the big coach. recognize wat other chlenges that's keeping them from smoking and aso what are the things in tir lifehat we can use to levere that would help them to quit. >> what would be an example wil? >> some of them wouldalk about when they smoke a cigarte, they may smoke, so instead of letti letting, lke my passe. can you dscribe those? >> for people who want to quit and they're getting withdrawals from nicotine, there are great fda-approd out there and nicotinepatches, gum and lozenges and therere also some that are not nicotine

replacemen but from a gologiical, and a of that's available to help people quit. >> can you use that with students, too? >> those are over t counter. if they want to get it they can go to the store and get it. it's more. what i tell them is all they're doing is iroducing anything n. tell us about the e cigarettes and what does the public know about those? >> they're very easy to get and i see them on the counters and registers and gas stations andes of just talking to my 14-year-old niece who is in ninth gde now and she was telling me how they can get them at school very easily. they like to do these smo.

before we wrap up. we have 30 seconds. what do you want people to know aut the health benefits of quitting smoking? >> within 20 minutes of quitting people will feel their heart rate go back to normal and their blood pressure go back to normal d after 10 years the pers who has been smoke will have the same cancer, almost when wants to get smoking, thai can quit it any time. and feel the effects very quickly. >> we appreciate it. thank you for the work you're dong. that is all of the time we have for today and mythanks toll of the wonderful guests. for more information on the program go to our website, abc7.com. we are also on facebook at abc 7 community affairs an follow me on twitter @cherylabcjennings.

we'll see you next time. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com

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