MINNEAPOLIS — Erik Hansen rolls up his left sleeve to reveal a roughly drawn skull-and-crossbones tattoo. A friend did it for him a few weeks ago, using a needle and ink at what Hansen calls a "poke and stick party" -- a growing trend among young people as tattoos and piercings have surged in popularity.
Body art between friends can be a rite of passage, a backroom ritual often done on the sly.
Teenagers talk about school athletes doing tattoos or piercings for one another as an initiation.
"It's more fun to have a friend do it -- and it was free," said Hansen, 20, of Minneapolis.
But officials where he lives -- and in other places nationwide -- are worried. In Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis, they've started a poster campaign in schools and neighborhood hangouts to encourage young people to have tattoos and piercings done by licensed professionals.
"Get the good design, not a bad disease!" says one poster about tattooing. Another features a photo of an upper-lip piercing with warnings about the risk of infections, blood-borne diseases and nerve damage.
The Oregon Health Licensing Office has a similar Web-based campaign, begun after several young people from the town of Klamath Falls got serious upper ear infections from piercings done at a jewelry kiosk with lax sterilization procedures. The cases -- and resulting disfiguration -- were documented in a recent issue of the Journal of the American Medical Assn.
Meanwhile, the Texas Department of Health library offers a video for teens and young adults titled "Tattooing and Body Piercing: Thinking Smart About Body Art." And Connecticut is among states with a brochure that has similar information.
The biggest concerns include the potential spread of tetanus and hepatitis B or C if people share tattooing needles or whatever sharp objects -- pins and nails included -- that are used to do their piercing.
"It's just not something you can do in your garage," said Shahn Anderson, a licensed tattooist and president of the Alliance of Professional Tattooists, who helped design the Hennepin County campaign.
Katie Klaren, 18, thinks that posting the information is a good idea.
"Anything but ears, I would want a professional to do," the high school senior from Roseville, Minn., said as she waited at a licensed piercing studio in Minneapolis with her friend, Leslie Barker. The fresh-faced teens were there to have their nipples pierced -- a procedure that has become trendy since Janet Jackson's Super Bowl flash.
