Facts

You make the educated choice, but how will you recognize smokeless Tobacco?

There are different forms of smokeless tobacco: chew (pouches, plug or twist) and snuff (dry or moist). These different forms are designed to get the maximum amount of nicotine into your blood stream as efficiently as possible.

Loose leaf is sold in all-too-convenient little pouches. This is the simplest form. It's basically a pouch of dead leaves and chemicals. Why not just stick a bunch of squashed cigars in your mouth?

Chew can also be found in a compressed brick form called plug tobacco, or in a twisted rope form called twist. Who doesn't love gnawing on part of a brick of pressed dead tobacco leaves that have been bathed in chemicals? Gross.

Snuff is a powder form of tobacco, sold in small tins or tea-bag like pouches. Like chew, it comes in two versions: dry snuff and moist snuff. Some people sniff the dry stuff (which is like sniffing saw dust from pressure treated wood), but the moist snuff is more common. That's the stuff that you pack between your bottom lip and lower gum. There are rough and smooth cuts, which cut your gums more or less aggressively - allowing the nicotine in the tobacco leaves to mix with your blood faster. Yum?

A dose of snuff is often referred to as a "pinch" or a "dip". Some people think chewing tobacco is a healthier alternative to smoking cigarettes - but a heavy smoker would need to have 30 - 40 cigarettes to receive the same amount of nicotine in only 8 - 10 "dips"! A single chew (which tends to last somewhere around half an hour) is the equivalent of smoking 4 whole cigarettes. That's like smoking a full cigarette every seven minutes or so!

One tin of snuff is the equivalent nicotine intake as smoking 60 cigarettes.

Pick Your Poison. That nauseating head-rush from chewing tobacco comes from the over 3,000 chemicals and 28 known carcinogens (chemicals that cause cancer) - almost all of which can also be found in cigarettes, including:

• Polonium 210 (found in nuclear waste)
• Formaldehyde (used to preserve dead bodies)
• Nicotine (an addictive little chemical)
• Cadmium (found in car batteries)
• Arsenic (used in rat poison)
• Benzene (used in rubber cement)

Checklist

Chewing tobacco causes cancer of the mouth (jaw, lip, tongue, cheek, floor and roof of the mouth), throat and voice box. 'Cause you don't really need those parts of your mouth anyway.

Sources: http://www.health.gov.sk.ca/rr_smokeless_tobacco.html http://dccps.nci.nih.gov/tcrb/less_default.html

Sinister Tactics

Get 'em while they're young. That's what the tobacco industry is thinking when they're spending billions of dollars on advertising... because you are one of their primary targets!

Smokeless tobacco comes in a range of different flavours - such as peach, vanilla, spearmint, cherry, apple cinnamon and licorice. And, it also comes in handy tins that look like they should be holding candy. So why all those yummy flavours? And packaging that looks like candy? Hmmm. Coincidence? We think not.

So why are they targeting you? Tobacco companies are constantly trying to seduce a new and younger clientele, to make up for their older consumers who are either dying or can no longer chew (after losing their jaws to cancer). Most spit tobacco users start around the age of nine or ten - when they are probably too young to realize that this candy-flavoured tobacco has serious health consequences.

Smokeless not harmless. Chewing tobacco is sometimes thought of as a healthier option to smoking. It's not. The tobacco industry hopes that the term 'smokeless tobacco' will fool you into thinking that it is a safer alternative - but chewing tobacco still contains over 3,000 chemicals, at least 26 of which are known to cause cancer. And let's not forget that chewing tobacco still gives you a heavy dose of nicotine to keep you hooked! Check out the 'Facts' section to get a detailed look at the many health risks associated with chewing tobacco.

"The use of spit tobacco by any name is a significant health risk and it is not a safe substitute for smoking cigarettes," according to The American Cancer Society.

http://www.cancer.org

Another way tobacco companies target you is through sport. The use and promotion of chewing tobacco products by athletes becomes a large factor in the use of smokeless tobacco - and leads to the corruption of sports heroes that we idolize and are inspired by.

http://www.cdc.gov

Make your vote count!
Support a petition to the Ministry of Health Promotion urging the government to ban the retail sale of all smokeless tobacco products in Ontario! If you want to show your support just click here -we don't need your name, only a tally of interested supporters.

Take a stand against the tobacco industry by not using!
Online petition to ban the retail sale of chew tobacco in Ontario coming soon...

Drool Much

So you still want to chew. Because you're invincible, right? Wrong! Cancer doesn't happen to everybody - that's true, but it also doesn't care how old you are. Here is what you can develop at the beginning, if you choose to chew.

Hairy tongue. You can actually get a hairy tongue, a condition that occurs when the tongue's taste buds do not wear off normally because they are coated with tobacco chemicals. The small hairs that grow naturally on your tongue are made black from the chemicals, and the hair is more pronounced.

Dip lip. Dip lip is a phenomenon where users of chewing tobacco lose control of their bottom lip - which is due to the dead nerve cells. It makes the chewer drool uncontrollably, even when he/she isn't chewing.

So, maybe it's not such a good idea to start chewing tobacco. There's really no 'maybe' about it. Looking cool for a year or two could make you look like this for the rest of your life.

Stickem Up

Scope a target, peel, stick, educate. Any one of these lost jaws could be scattered around town to get the word out about the health effects of chewing tobacco.

Pick

Peel

Stick

Get your sticker sheet in one these magazines:

Or download them here:

Download Adobe Acrobat

Download the Sticker Sheet

Spread the Word

To send this to yourself, and/or a friend - just fill in the form below.

Links

Looking to quit?
This is a good place to start:

http://www.nstep.org/QuitingSpitTobacco.htm or
http://www.healthpolitics.org/
http://www.quittobacco.com/

Need more ammo on why not to start chewing?
Check these out:

http://www.health.gov.sk.ca/rr_smokeless_tobacco.html
http://www.cancer.org
http://dontdip.tamu.edu/ingredients.html
http://www.tobaccofacts.org/
http://www.cancer.gov/
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/

Brought to you by the Not To Kids! Coalition
The Not to Kids Coalition is a group of 27 public health agencies across Ontario working to create a generation free from tobacco use. We work together to get the message out about the health impacts of tobacco use and to engage youth in activities to prevent youth from starting down the road to what could be a life-long addiction. If you want to get involved in tobacco use prevention work contact your local public health agency - Click on the link to find the one closest to you.

http://www.health.gov.on.ca

With financial support from Health Canada.
We appreciate a financial contribution from Health Canada to this program. Information on tobacco products, health effects of tobacco use, second-hand smoke and smoking cessation are available through the Health Canada website.
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