Urban areas are the sites of many smoking prevention strategies targeting special populations. This digest provides an overview of these initiatives. Adolescents smoke for the same reasons that they use alcohol and other drugs. Personal factors that contribute to risk are enhanced by tobacco company advertising that makes smoking seem attractive. Several essential components of tobacco prevention education have been identified. They include emphasis of the facts that: (1) smoking is not personally or socially desirable; (2) it takes away the smoker's free choice; (3) it is not an adult habit nor an effective act of rebellion; (4) smoking destroys good health; and (5) most teenagers do not smoke and it is acceptable to refuse to smoke. Anti-tobacco education is best begun at an early age, as some examples of programs demonstrate. Suggestions are offered for schools, the community, and the family to help prevent the beginning of smoking by adolescents. Although cigarette smoking has been decreasing, there is some evidence that youth are getting caught up in the cigar smoking fad and that smoking promotions on the Internet are having an influence. Anti-smoking initiatives must be maintained and updated. (Contains 12 references.) (SLD)