On a recent Thursday afternoon, the kindergarten through third-grade classes at Raymond Elementary School in Northwest Washington walked single file, class by class, into the cafeteria/multipurpose room. The United Health Care Corp., which manages Capital Community Health Plan and other HMOs, is a co-sponsor. The HMO is sponsoring visits by the theater troupe to 50 public elementary schools in the city.

'It's the kind of health problem that with the right education, if we can get kids not to start, we can really take care of the problem,' said Hanita Schreiber, president and chief executive of Capital Community Health Plan, a health maintenance organization owned by Children's National Medical Center, Greater Southeast Community Hospital, Howard University Hospital, Providence Hospital and the Washington Hospital Center. The program, which started in the school system in October and continues this month, is trying to teach these youngsters that smoking is 'not cool' and persuade others not to start. More than 20 percent of boys and 14 percent of girls in the District have smoked cigarettes before they reach age 13, according to the Bureau of Cancer Control in the D.C. With help from the Minneapolis-based National Theatre for Children and its '2 Smart 2 Smoke' productions, the city's schoolchildren are being targeted with an anti-smoking campaign at a time when smoking among youth is increasing. elementary school students has introduced them to a whole new vocabulary, including such words of warning as tobacco, lungs, nicotine, consequence, advertising and addictive. The debut of an anti-smoking program for D.C.

Smoking pig from the wolf among us game