Whiffleball games help get anti-tobacco message to kids

The students at Plains High School are being proactive about reACT.

Tobacco companies across the nation are looking to target youth in an effort to boost sales, according to Betty Taylor, the school's counselor and the tobacco prevention specialist, who's helping to coordinate “Through With Chew Week” at the school. A group of reACT students at Plains High School have decided to take up the fight against corporate tobacco by educating their fellow students about the dangers of tobacco use.

The anti-tobacco group reACT is a statewide program and part of the Montana Tobacco Use Prevention Program. The reACT groups are comprised of teenagers who are trying to educate other youth about the ills of tobacco as well as the marketing strategies of tobacco companies, which are targeting young people to boost sales.

The Plains group consists of six seniors and two juniors, who came up with a variety of ways to promote Through With Chew Week in an effort to get the word out about smokeless tobacco, including holding a whiffleball tournament. Taylor said they went with whiffleball games because of the historical association between baseball and chew. Baseball players even today can be seen with a bulging cheek or lip.

Taylor said the school tried to get former baseball player Gruen Von Behren to speak to the students, but he was unavailable. Behren, who played for the Philadelphia Comets, lost most of his lower face as a result of smokeless tobacco, which he started at age 13. He is a spokesman for the Oral Health America's National Spit Tobacco Education Program and visits schools across the nation in an effort to warn children about tobacco.

The whiffle games began last Tuesday with team one defeating team four. On Wednesday, team three claimed victory over team two. A consolation game between teams two and four was held Thursday with team two coming out on top. The championship game between teams one and three finished Monday with team three in the number one slot.

Forty-five students from freshmen to seniors signed up for the games, which were held during lunch time in the gymnasium. Physical education teacher Mike Cole, who served as umpire, said each game went until time was up. The ceiling and side walls were foul ball territory. A ball hit into Cole's office was a ground-rule double and a shot to the mezzanine was a home run.

The Plains reACT team - Bethany Catalanello, Kara Bates, Melody Earhart, Kelly Baker, Gabby Reynolds, Keaton Jones, Leah Swedberg, and Bambi Erving - designed all sorts of ways to get the anti-tobacco word to other students by creating posters and displays, collecting education literature, and giving out cards with the slogan: “Double Your Pleasure, Double Your Fun, Chewing OK, But Stick to Gum,” written by Heather Phoenix, a staff member at the school. In conjunction with the hand-out, the reACT team taped a piece of bubblegum on more than 200 lockers Thursday.

Thirty students of the fourth grade classes of Kathee Hojem and Jennie Youngren each held an anti-tobacco poster drawing and coloring contest. First place went to Jade LaDeaux and Danika Whitcomb. Second place was Amanda Marjerrison and Madison Beagley. Ty Cummings and Josh Sartain took third.

The Plains school has received a $20,000 anti-tobacco grant from the state for the last two years. Taylor said the funds are used to purchase education materials, bring in speakers, and to help pay part of the salary of the school resource officer, Sanders County Deputy Chris McGuigan, who rotates his duties to schools throughout the county.

According to Erin Kintop, a staff member with the Montana Tobacco Use Prevention Program, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services in Helena, their office is getting a lot of feedback from teens across the state. Kintop said the program, which began two years ago, is a worthwhile one that is in the process of expanding. Their Web site has been in operation for only about five weeks, but it has already received numerous hits.

The Plains high school students started a pledge board against tobacco. Several teens have already put their names on the cloth poster near the principal's office. In addition, Pat Nichols, a tobacco specialist, talked to students from seventh to 12th grade last week. Nichols, a Mineral County resident and formerly the Sanders County tobacco specialist, told Taylor that quite a few students were anxious to ask her questions. “The tobacco industries are corporations who are desperate to maintain profits from a product that, when used as intended, kills people. That means all loyal customers either die or quit tobacco at some point,” said Nichols, who has her own tobacco prevention consulting company and works with the University of Montana, is also interested in having a student forum about careers in tobacco and drug prevention in the fall. “New users (customers) must be recruited, and as savvy marketers, the tobacco industry designs products and campaigns to solicit users during youth and adolescence.”

“We want to make kids aware of the tobacco industry and their marketing practices that are targeting youth and how insidious they are,” said Taylor, who feels the reACT program is important and hopes it can reach teenagers before they become addicted. Taylor said she's not sure if the program is helping and she hasn't received a lot of feedback from students.

“We need to educate the kids so they aren't taken advantage of,” she said. Taylor also said that young people can easily get “sucked in” unless they're aware of the tobacco dangers. The counselor added that the constant awareness has been good and the school administration has been extremely supportive in her program. The Citizens Against Drug and Alcohol Abuse - CADAA - has periodically talked to the students, according to Taylor, who also noted that even though Through With Chew is only one week, the school has anti-tobacco programs throughout the year. “Kick Butts Day” is scheduled for April 2. In October, the school participates in Red Ribbon Week, which also targets tobacco abuse. Cole and McGuigan plan to give lessons on the dangers of tobacco throughout the year, said Taylor. “It's clearly a community effort,” she said.

Taylor said tobacco companies' marketing approaches are geared for children as young as 8 years old. “They disguise cigarettes to look like candy,” said Taylor, who has an assortment of tobacco products designed to target youth, such as individual cigars that are sold inside casings that look like markers, pink cigarettes that come in lip gloss-like containers. “If a parent looks through their child's backpack, and finds these, they won't even know there are cigarettes in there,” said Taylor, who calls her basket of goodies her “tobacco death kit.”

According to Kintop, someone in the United States dies from a tobacco-related illness every 72 seconds, or 1,200 people per day. She said tobacco companies spend $41.8 million a year promoting their products in Montana, which is why reACT's key message is aimed toward those companies. “Tobacco companies spend billions of dollars marketing to youth, since they need to replace the over 400,000 customers that die annually. And it works - most tobacco users report starting in their teens,” she said, adding that about 90 percent of smokers begin the habit before age 18.

“It's a way for us to fight back against the tobacco companies,” said Kintop, who added that one of the strategies of reACT is teens talking to teens. She noted that many times a teenager will listen to somebody of their own age before they accept advice from a parent or another adult.

Kintop noted that reACT is not against those who use tobacco, but rather, the industry that promotes, addicts, and profits from it. A mission of reACT, she said, is to de-normalize and de-glamorize tobacco.

“We teach youth - who can then teach other youth - that tobacco is only a choice one time - it's addiction thereafter,” said Nichols. “There's no magical qualities that a person gets from tobacco; just a costly habit, physical deterioration from use of that product, and a chain of use that dwindles cash and physical health attributes. We also help them know that no matter how many different ways the tobacco industry will present this product - smokeless, spitless, cigars or otherwise, there is no safe tobacco.”