Smokeless tobacco poses growing threat to our kids
Added: (Wed Feb 01 2012)
Pressbox (Press Release) -
Young people appear to be using smokeless tobacco at much higher rates than a decade ago. They sometimes are under the misimpression that smokeless tobacco is a safe alternative to smoking.
Sue Amato, director of health education and planning for the St. Clair County Health Department, reports the rate has leveled off in terms of kids starting to smoke. But the use of smokeless tobacco among high school students is up 36% from 2003 to 2009.
According to the Michigan Youth Behavior Risk Factor Survey, significantly fewer high school students have ever tried cigarettes, smoked daily, smoked before age 13 or reported recent and heavy smoking during the last decade. The same survey showed more high school students have used chew, dip, or snuff.
Nationally, about 15% of high school students use smokeless tobacco.
Why the increase? It appears to be a mix of splashy advertising for new smokeless tobacco products aimed at young people, the convenience of smokeless tobacco for users in the face of increasing prohibitions against smoking and its continued popularity in certain subcultural settings, such as baseball.
"Snus is the new popular product right now, a kind of tea bag filled with flavored tobacco that you put in your cheek," Amato said.
"There's no spitting. You can't smoke in a lot of places now, so it's being used as a way to calm nicotine cravings. You can see advertisements on the walls of any Speed-Q."
Mike Greene, the baseball coach at St. Clair County Community College in Port Huron, said some players on his 26-member squad chew tobacco.
"The majority of the players probably don't, but it's one of those baseball things," Greene said. "I discourage it."
Using smokeless tobacco is not condoned by the college. Players must sign an agreement not to use smokeless tobacco, among other things, on campus or during games.
Greene believes Major League Baseball, where chewing is permitted, sets a bad example for the kids. If the highest-paid, most- talented ballplayers in the world chew, how bad can it be? The answer is pretty bad.
According to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, smokeless tobacco causes leukoplakia, a disease of the mouth characterized by white patches and oral lesions on the cheeks, gums, and/or tongue. Leukoplakia, which can lead to oral cancer, occurs in more than half of all users in the first three years of use. Constant exposure to tobacco juice also causes cancer of the esophagus, pharynx, larynx, stomach and pancreas.
We all know about Babe Ruth's baseball feats, but few of us know that he died from throat cancer.
Bill Tuttle, a former Detroit Tiger who played a generation after Ruth, became an anti-chewing activist after being diagnosed with oral cancer. Tuttle underwent surgeries to remove his taste buds, gums, jawbone and right cheekbone. He died in 1998.
"I tell these guys, 'You may not like what I say, but with lung cancer you die of lung cancer,'" said Joe Garagiola, a former Major League catcher and broadcaster who gave up chewing in the late 1950s.
"With oral cancer, you die one piece at a time. They operate on your neck, they operate on your jaw, and they operate on your throat."
The health department and other public agencies don't have the resources to run big campaigns against smokeless tobacco. That means the responsibility of discouraging our young people from using smokeless tobacco falls upon us as parents, educators and good citizens.