TIME TO FIGHT AGAINST TOBACCO IMAGES THAT WOO CHILDREN; INTERVENTION BEFORE AGE 12 A MUST IN KEEPING YOUNGSTERS FROM SMOKING.

Byline: Art Vinsel

SHE was a tawny little fox, with tightly braided hair, obviously bored, perhaps a bit lonely, staring off into some dreamy distance, inhaling lovingly, exhaling exquisitely, with a graceful wrist gesture and closed eyes.

Her delicate fingers held that slender paper cylinder like a supermodel smoking in the supersonic Concorde's first-class lounge, bound for a command performance in some chic Paris salon.

She was only 4 or 5, however, and it wasn't a jetliner, but a jouncing Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus driven by her mom - or perhaps grandma - who'd taken the child along on Route 550 that night. The little girl's pretend cigarette was a carefully rolled, albeit filthy, $1 bill. She probably got it with the promise of a treat at break time, if she sat still, stayed quiet and didn't pester passengers with her winsome grin that beamed occasionally.

Children clearly equate cigarettes with comfort, style and well-deserved relief, not to mention one of the forbidden fruits that becomes an OK option in that mysterious realm of adulthood.

And two recent news stories offer grim new warnings to those concerned about children and cigarette consumption.

After notable success since 1989 in curbing California's smoking rate, California Tobacco Control Program budget cuts and insidious new cigarette ad campaigns turned that trend around.

And, in combating any kind of drug dependence or alcoholism, it's imperative that youngsters get the mental and emotional tools, well before age 12, to help them just say no. By 12, it's too late. Their attitudes are shaped.

This remembered pantomime of smoking and increasing tobacco use by children, coupled with the need for deterrent education by age 12, make even more challenging my recent appointment to a committee. Our task is developing an anti-smoking video for kids. The finished tape must be suitable for public-access cable television.

What are we going to do? How can we make a meaningful difference? How can we save the children?

Where do we start?

Six of us, ages 23 to 57, were picked by the Beacon House Association of San Pedro, recipient of a grant from L.A. Links, a proactive social service organization under contract by Los Angeles County. We are all alumni of Beacon House, a men's residential alcohol and drug recovery program. We know about getting hooked and how hard it is to stop habits ingrained into addiction.

Our life experiences, besides booze, tobacco, marijuana, acid, speed, downers, cocaine, crack and heroin, include elementary education, video work, media communication, rock music, script writing and substance-abuse counseling. Andy, Chris and Matt are also age-appropriate to chat with teens and preteens, without being distrusted on sight.

Andy, 23, is Beacon House's newly created youth services coordinator and, on his own, initiated two large alcohol-drug recovery meetings for young people in southwestern Los Angeles County this past year.

They meet Friday and Saturday nights. Not all youths, you see, are carousing or worse on weekends. Andy also goes to schools to speak to groups of at-risk kids. And, he is still a cigarette smoker.

``I really want to quit,'' he says earnestly. ``Sometimes, I just feel like crap, coughing and wheezing. I started when I was 6, but it was just a couple of puffs. I coughed and got dizzy. Then, in high school, where I was an athlete, I began smoking cigarettes to mask the odor of the marijuana I was smoking every day.''

Kimo, 34, admits he's a recovering alcoholic-addict who tried it all and liked it all. He could stop only with use of nicotine patches.Tobacco was the toughest of all for him to forsake.

``I feel that if any other drug produced the craving that tobacco cessation did, I would still be using those drugs today,'' says Kimo, a musician who'll do our video soundtrack and computer editing.

As for me, a pipe smoker for 30 years, I tried cigarettes briefly in 1962, in a painful, personal time, yearning for something to make me feel better. Marlboros didn't work like cheap vodka did, so I quit bothering with them. And this is the key to all human addictions, from tobacco to alcohol, prescription drugs, street dope, food, sex, gambling and even religion.

If it feels good, we'll do it. And the more the better.

The cigarette industry and its marketing psychologists have already had their way with generations of youngsters. How many million more will turn 12, that threshold age for tobacco intervention, this year? Their minds are rather unformed at 12, but on that level they are already made up.

We don't know yet how we will approach our video assault on the cigarette industry's intended abduction of another generation of kids, like that tired kindergartner playacting on my bus that recent night. She was likely imitating some adult close in her life.

But we are surely game to try; six recovering alcoholic-addicts who no longer use alcohol or harder drugs. We have to do something.

Our whole society must.