Blonde, blue-eyed Kelly Quick was so fair, classmates used to call her "Powder." At 17, Quick g a job at a tanning salon hear her hometown of Fenton, Mo. For 15 months she enjoyed sessions of 15 to 30 min, three times a week on ultraviolets-lit beds—and she loved the bronze glow it gave her. "Pi pie always complimented me," she says.

But at 19, Quick noticed that a freckle on her stomach had turned darker and felt hard to the touch. Her physician mother told her the stunning news: It was melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. Fortunately the disease was at an early stage. Quick had the malignant spot removed, and no further signs of cancer have surfaced. Her tanning days, however, were over. "I didn't think it was that big of a deal," she says of her youthful disregard for the dangers of tanning. "Skin cancer happened to other people."

Not anymore. Skin cancer, which can result from exposure to ultraviolet rays, was almost unheard of among young people 15 years ago. The rate has jumped 20 percent among women 15 to 34 in roughly the last decade, according to the National Institutes of Health. Yet teens and twentysomethings are flocking to tanning parlors like never before, leading many dermatologists to worry that the pursuit offashionable skin tones has become harmful to the health of their patients.

Says Dr. Eliot Battle, an assistant clinical professor of dermatology at Howard University in Washington, D.C.: "The tanning salon is a quick fix. But there is no way tanning beds can be safe."

So far, scientific research hasn't proved a link between the rise in teen skin cancers and the use of tanning beds. But to date, 22 states have passed laws limiting teen access to salons, and legislation is pending in at least seven others. In California and Illinois, sun beds are banned for kids under 14, and older teens need a consent form from their parents—measures that some supporters of the $5 billion-a-year tanning industry call unenforceable. Indoor Tanning Association president Dan Humiston says tanning on a bed—which costs between $8 and $15 per 15-min. dose of UV rays—is safe, providing bone-building vitamin D and a means of putting down a burn-saving base coat before hitting the beach. "Tanning salons provide a valuable service," says Humiston, whose group does support parental-consent forms.

Whom to trust? Because their skin cells and immune systems are still maturing, teens may be more vulnerable to the damaging effects of ultraviolet rays, says Dr. Lynn McKinley-Grant, a dermatologist in Chevy Chase, Md. And tanning beds can give teens a false sense of security that they may not feel under direct sunlight, making them tan more aggressively. Many dermatologists now recommend wearing sunblock any time you walk outside. Yet earlier this year, to get a jump start on looking good for her upcoming prom, 15-year-old Brittany Spellman of Millard, Neb. (a state with no tanning-bed laws) went to a tanning parlor twice in one day—and was so badly burned she spent her weeklong spring break laid up at home. "I was planning to hang out with my friends," she says. "But I wasn't able to do anything."

Still, sunburns are quickly forgotten—and the pressure to look good is intense. At Maple Tan salon in Maple Grove, Minn., Jackie Harris, 18, is midway through the six-session special student package she got for $35. "I always tan before major events like prom or vacations—it makes me feel better about myself," she says. "Right now, the idea of skin cancer doesn't concern me."

Nancy Jeffrey. Ellen Shapiro and Ashlee Picard in Washington, D.C., Pam Grout in Lawrence, Kans., and Sheree R. Curry in Maple Grove

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Jackie Harris, 18 Maple Grove, Minn.
Worries about skin cancer "will probably freak me out when I I'm older" she says (at Maple Tan, where she goes to work on her color).

Kelly Quick, 22, Fenton, Mo.
"You know kids. They think they're invincible," says Quick's mother of her daughter's brush with cancer.