Is your teenage son (or daughter) chewing flavoured tobacco?
The answer, in many cases, is yes. They are putting themselves at significant risk for a variety of health problems, and you may not even realize they’re using tobacco.
But they are not entirely at fault. They are the victims of bad decision-making, certainly. But we should also cast blame on devious marketing, a regulatory system that failed to protect children, parents and educators who are unaware of the growing problem, and peer pressure.
Teens aged 15 to 19 are the target market for flavoured tobacco, according to the Canadian Cancer Society.
Jenna Millar, community services co-ordinator for the cancer society in Red Deer, says that 40 per cent of the flavoured tobacco sold in Canada is bought in Alberta.
Les Hagen, the executive director of Action on Smoking and Health, a Western Canadian tobacco control advocate, says “Alberta is the epicentre of smokeless tobacco in Canada.” Consumption rates in Alberta, including for young males, are double the national average.
Tobacco companies shamelessly attract young users by introducing sweet flavours that have more in common with candy than tobacco: peach, mint, wild berry, cotton candy, chocolate and licorice all hide the unsavoury taste of tobacco.
As traditional tobacco markets decline in the western world, manufacturers have targeted new markets. Third World smokers, for example, have been aggressively pursued; so too are young males and females in North America, who are seen as pliable to peer pressure and receptive to image marketing.
In the case of young women, cigarettes are projected as tools of the cool. For young men, in many cases, the rough-and-ready cowboy mystique is tied to smokeless tobacco use, particularly in western regions like Alberta and Montana.
So we have a new generation of tobacco users who are quietly courting disaster.
The young users of smokeless tobacco may well be fooled into thinking they are using a product that is less addictive, and less harmful, than cigarettes.
They are wrong. Finely cut tobacco, combined with abrasive elements of the product, mean that nicotine more readily enters the blood stream.
Tobacco is tobacco, and the carcinogens are just as harmful if they are placed along the membrane of the mouth, along the gums, down your throat and into your digestive system.
Cancers of the mouth, pancreas and esophagus are all common. So too are other health problems like heart disease, gum disease, tooth loss, sores and bad breath. According to the American Cancer Society, studies have shown that smokeless tobacco has higher levels of tobacco-specific nitrosamines (chemicals that cause cancer) than cigarette smoke.
Yet the federal government has failed to draw product-specific legislation that will stop the insidious marketing of flavoured chew. A bill that recently became law made flavoured tobacco illegal — except the smokeless variety.
Certainly youth aren’t the only users of smokeless tobacco — its use has been promoted as a way to quit smoking, and it has replaced cigarettes for some adults users as public smoking has become less tolerated.
But as long as young people are led to believe that the use of smokeless tobacco doesn’t carry significant consequences, the problem will grow.
John Stewart is the Advocate’s managing editor.