Dasa Moore

PERSPECTIVE

Picture something that you may never have thought twice about - someone chewing tobacco. What comes to your mind? What does the person look like? What is this person doing? Perhaps you pictured a man, silent, well-built, strong, rustic and tough. Perhaps he was riding a horse, roping a calf, riding a bull, hunting, fishing or just finished racing at 200 mph. If this is what you pictured, you have been brainwashed by the billion-dollar tobacco companies who use our Western way of life to pitch their products.

Smokeless tobacco - that's what the tobacco companies named chew tobacco. Sounds really close to harmless, doesn't it? Funny, they didn't call it that until the public finally was made aware of how dangerous smoking is and people began to abandon their smoking habit. But it is still chew tobacco in any of its forms, and smokeless is not really harmless. Even when the tobacco company's Web site promotes it as a good alternative to smoking.

Chew tobacco is a major problem in Wyoming, with the rate of adult males (16 percent) being about twice the national average. The group with the highest usage rate in Wyoming is 18- to 24-year-old males at 26 percent. Our high school males have the highest rate of all the high school males in the nation. Do the images that the chew tobacco companies implant play a part in our state's usage problem?

There are two types of smokeless tobacco - snuff and chewing tobacco. Snuff is a finely ground or shredded tobacco that is packaged in the small, flat, round cans with names such as Skoal, Copenhagen, Grizzly, Kodiak and Timber Wolf. Chewing tobacco is available in loose leaf, plug, twists or pouches with names like Levi Garrett, Red Man and Union Workman. Did you notice the names? Don't they seem awfully tough and outdoorsy? A coincidence? I think not.

So what's the big deal about a little chewing tobacco? Living here in Wyoming, you can probably name quite a few people who chew and maybe a few in your family.

Here's the big deal. Chewing tobacco and snuff contain 28 carcinogens (cancer-causing agents). The most harmful carcinogens in chew tobacco are in the tobacco nitrosamines (TSNAs) formed during the growing, curing, fermenting and aging of tobacco. TSNAs have been detected in chew tobacco products at levels many times higher than levels of nitrosamines allowed in regulated food like bacon or beer. Other cancer-causing substances in chew tobacco include arsenic, formaldehyde, nickel, cadmium and polonium-210 (a radioactive compound).

All tobacco, including chew tobacco, contains nicotine, which is highly addictive, used in insecticides, and in concentrated form can kill an adult human. The amount of nicotine absorbed from chew tobacco is three to four times the amount delivered by a cigarette. The nicotine is absorbed more slowly from chew than from cigarettes, but more nicotine per dose is absorbed from the chew, and the nicotine stays in the bloodstream for a longer time.

Do you see the big deal yet? Cancer is a pretty big deal. The white lesions and red patches that often appear in the mouth of the person who uses chew can become cancerous. Chew tobacco users are up to 50 times more likely to get oral cancers - those of the lip, tongue, cheeks, gums and the floor and roof of the mouth.

Painful swallowing, a lump in the neck, or a voice change like persistent hoarseness may be symptoms of cancer of the larynx or the esophagus, also linked to the use of chew tobacco.

Other effects of use include addiction to nicotine, discolored teeth, receding gums, ulcers and increased risk of high blood pressure, stroke and heart disease.

Quitting chew tobacco is not easy, but it can be done. Many experts believe that the average chew tobacco user is just as addicted to nicotine as the average cigarette smoker. In order to kick the habit the user must first want to quit strongly enough to make it through the first couple weeks off tobacco when nicotine withdrawals are the worst. Experts also suggest establishing a quit date, creating a support group among friends and family, changing the daily routine to break away from situations that make one want to use, keeping busy, and chewing gum, cinnamon sticks or sunflower seeds whenever the urge to chew strikes.

Last month, a "Through with Chew" campaign was conducted by a division of the state Department of Health. Using the tobacco settlement funds, they have arranged with the Mayo Clinic Quitline (1-866-WYO-QUIT) for free help for those wanting to quit smoking or using chew tobacco.

Dasa Moore is assistant director of Casper's chapter of Well-Being of Wyoming, 152 N. Durbin St., Suite 314, Casper, 82601; phone 307-472-5991.