Regional youth group calls for complete ban on chewing tobacco products

News Release
NWHU

Youth Action Alliance groups across the Northwest region have wrapped up their part of a provincial postcard campaign which culminated during Through with Chew Week, the last week of February. The Youth Action Alliance groups, called YAA for short, work to educate youth about the dangers of tobacco industry products and the manipulative nature of the tobacco industry. They set out to collect signatures of residents across the region that were in favour of banning spit tobacco, also called dip, snuff, and chew.
YAA peer leaders from Kenora, Dryden, Sioux Lookout, Rainy River, Atikokan, Ignace, Fort Frances and Red Lake held education and awareness events in their communities and collected over 400 postcards which were combined with postcards from Thunder Bay YAA and presented to MPP Bill Mauro. The youth asked Mr. Mauro for support and to bring their message to the Ontario government. Other YAA groups across the province held similar postcard campaigns.
Spit tobacco use among Northwestern Ontario youth is a problem. The most recent student drug use survey reports that chew is used by 10% of the northwest high school aged youth in the past year, a number that is higher than the rest of the province.
Spit tobacco is just as, if not more, addictive than cigarettes as one tin contains as much nicotine as 3 – 4 packs of cigarettes. Spit tobacco also contains over 3000 chemicals including 30 known carcinogens. Although the tobacco industry claims they do not to target youth, their marketing techniques suggest otherwise. They place youth appealing tobacco ads in magazines that youth read, such as Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated, and Maxim. New products continue to appear on the shelves that are less expensive, discrete, and easier for first-time users like tobacco pouches and the industry has introduced candy flavours to their chew tobacco including green apple, cherry, peach, vanilla, and mint. A US Smokeless Tobacco executive was quoted saying, Cherry Skoal is for somebody who likes the taste of candy, if you know what I mean...
Chewing tobacco can lead to halitosis or bad breath, yellow teeth and leukoplakia which is a condition in which thickened white patches form on your gums and which can be related to the formation of some mouth cancers. It is also connected to heart disease and gum & tooth disease such as receding gums, cavities and chronic painful sores. By educating youth and parents about the dangers of using spit tobacco, YAA peer leaders hope to work to decrease the number of their peers who take up the habit and get addicted to this form of tobacco.
We really think we can make a difference here, say the local peer leaders. Now is the time for the government to step in and ban this tobacco industry product, before it becomes an epidemic like smoking.