NO BUTTS: The public health campaign against...

NO BUTTS: The public health campaign against smoking is now in the hands of kids. . . . Since most children experiment with tobacco when they’re 10 to 14 years old, commercials running on Orange County cable stations feature a series of don’t-smoke messages from “kids talking to kids about it in their own terms,” says campaign spokesman Jack Beresford. . . . The $100,000 cost for the Orange and San Diego county campaigns is coming from cigarette taxes voted in 1988.

HAVEN: After six years, Hospice Orange County officials have found a five-bedroom Anaheim Hills house to establish the first homelike environment in the county for the dying. . . . Catholic Charities once operated a program for developmentally disabled children at the house, but it is offering to lease the house to accommodate six terminally ill adults. . . . Hospice official Mike Gleason says the group hopes to raise $200,000 to cover start-up costs, beginning with an art auction fund-raiser Nov. 14.

JUST SAY YES: How do you get children to put up with shots? Call Sammy Syringe, the pointy-headed hero of a booklet paid for by a drug company and developed by Children’s Hospital of Orange County. . . . Three versions aim at different ages, and 45,000 copies in English and Spanish have been distributed nationally. “The younger children love Sammy,” says a hospital spokeswoman, “and the older ones are learning what is going on in their bodies.”

WAR ON AIDS: The nationwide rate of teen-agers contracting the deadly AIDS virus has almost doubled in the last two years, and local AIDS workers are taking action. . . . The AIDS Response Program of Orange County has received state money for testing referrals and group discussions. . . . “Adult gay men on the whole tend to have safer sex, but we are seeing an increase in unsafe sex among gay youth,” says a program spokesman, who believes the discussions could be very beneficial. “If one’s friends are practicing safer sex, it’s much more likely an individual will follow suit.”