Tag Archives: chewing tobacco

Baseball partially bans chewing tobacco

baseball

It isn’t a full-fledged ban, but baseball is taking action on chewing tobacco.

Anti-tobacco advocates — and several Congressmen and U.S. Senators — have been pushing for months to have chew banned by Major League Baseball. It would mean no chew on the field, or during games. Before you laugh, that rule has been in effect in Minor League Baseball for 15 years. (And smoking during games in the dugout is banned by MLB.).

The reason for this is plenty of kids get to watch their favourite players chewing during games and that helps encourage them to take up the habit.

Well, advocates won a partial victory. During negotiations between the players’ union and MLB, the union did agree to limitations on chewing tobacco. No chewing tobacco tins on the field in players’ pockets and players cannot be seen with chew in their cheek during television interviews.

Not everyone is happy with the agreement.

“Baseball players are idols to millions of youth, and they should strive to be healthy role models. The failure to ban smokeless tobacco is bad for the health of the players and worse for the kids who emulate them,” said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif.

“The fact is that smokeless tobacco use by baseball players will still appear on television screens across the United States,” said Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J.

This is a compromise, not exactly what we were looking for, but at least it’s a first step. The players’ union was fighting a tobacco ban tooth and nail. Perhaps this will lead to an eventual ban on tobacco chew in ballparks. Players can chew if they want on their own time, but when they are in an MLB, they are on the clock, and there aren’t very many workplaces that would allow you to chew on the job.

The other big news from the agreement is that players will now be tested for HGH, human growth hormone.

New group to advocate getting chewing tobacco out of baseball


Well, I guess this was inevitable; though I was surprised to see it today. A new group has been formed, with snazzy website and everything to urge Major League Baseball to ban chew from clubhouses and playing fields. I’ll be keeping an eye on this site.

The group, called TobaccoFreeBaseball.org, the brainchild of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, one of the more deliciously assertive groups out there fighting Big Tobacco. (The Forces.org types really hate Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. Must mean they’re doing a good job. Anything that gets that crowd’s dander up is OK by me.)

Here is their official announcement of their new campaign.

A short excerpt from their announcement:

Several news stories have examined the difficulty players and coaches have in breaking their addiction. Among those who have spoken about the challenge of quitting are Strasburg, American League Most Valuable Player Josh Hamilton and Bruce Bochy, manager of the World Champion San Francisco Giants. Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn’s recent cancer diagnosis and his public comments attributing his disease to years of chewing tobacco have underscored the health threat from smokeless tobacco.

Tobacco use was banned in baseball’s minor leagues in 1993. The NCAA and the National Hockey League have instituted prohibitions on tobacco use. Major League Baseball is lagging behind.

Meanwhile, smokeless tobacco use among high school boys is spiking – there has been a 36 percent increase since 2003 and 15 percent of high school boys currently use smokeless tobacco, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

They also forgot Red Sox manager Terry Francona, who has tried to quit chew, but hasn’t been able to so far.

Smokeless tobacco … without the tobacco


Interesting, a rodeo rider from Whitehall, Montana, has invented a kind of snuff that uses alfalfa and peppermint rather than any tobacco products. He eventually developed cancerous lesions in the mouth and lymphoma.

Now cancer-free and with his jawbone luckily still intact, Dave Holt, working with the University of Nebraska, has invented this tobacco-free snuff that he says is as tasty as the real deal. Holt claims his concotion also makes a nice tea and helps ward off colds (Well, we’ll take his word for it, the big thing is, it isn’t CARCINOGENIC.). The family is producing 600 cans a day of their product and are ready to start making more as demand for more tobacco-free products grows.

Here’s wishing them well. I’ll help give them a bit of free advertising. Here is their website:

http://www.worldsgreatestchew.com