You don't smoke it. You don't swallow it. All you do is slosh it around your mouth and spit out the brown juices every few seconds.

OK, so it actually is pretty disgusting.

But so what? After all, it's called smokeless or chewing tobacco. That means you chew and spit it, not smoke it, so it can't be as bad as inhaling tobacco smoke into your lungs, right?
Wrong . . . unfortunately, smokeless doesn't mean harmless. The fact is, chewing tobacco is every bit as dangerous as smoking it.

What Is Smokeless Tobacco?Smokeless tobacco, also called spit tobacco, chewing tobacco, chew, chaw, dip, plug, and probably a few other things, comes in two forms: snuff and chewing tobacco.

Snuff is a fine-grain tobacco that often comes in teabag-like pouches that users "pinch" or "dip" between their lower lip and gum.

Chewing tobacco comes in shredded, twisted, or "bricked" tobacco leaves that users put between their cheek and gum.

Whether it's snuff or chewing tobacco, you're supposed to let it sit in your mouth and suck on the tobacco juices, spitting often to get rid of the saliva that builds up.
This sucking and chewing allows nicotine, which is a drug you can become addicted to, to be absorbed into the bloodstream through the tissues in your mouth.
You don't even need to swallow.

Where Does It Come From?Smokeless tobacco has been around for a long time. Native people of North and South America chewed tobacco, and snorting and chewing snuff was popular in Europe and Scandinavia (the word "snuff" comes from the Scandinavian word "snus".

In the United States, chewing tobacco has long been associated with baseball. Players chewed it to keep their mouths moist, spit it into their gloves to soften them up, and used it to make a "spitball," a special pitch that involved the pitcher dabbing the ball with saliva to cause it to spin off the fingers easily and break sharply. (Spitballs were banned from the sport in 1920.) By the 1950s, chewing tobacco had fallen out of favor in most of America, so by that time not too many baseball players were spitting big brown gobs all over the infield. Instead of chewing their tobacco, most people were smoking it.

But, in the 1970s, people became more aware of the dangers of smoking. Thinking it was a safe alternative to lighting up, baseball players started chewing on their tobacco again. Some players even developed the habit of mixing their chewing tobacco with bubble gum and chewing the whole thing. Gross, huh?
These days, you don't find the majority of professional ballplayers with wads of chaw in their cheeks.

But lots of guys and girls, athletes or not, still find time for chewing and spitting.
Who Chews?As many as 20% of high school boys and 2% of high school girls use smokeless tobacco, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Of the 12 to 14 million American users, one third are under age 21, and more than half of those developed the habit before they were 13.
Peer pressure is just one of the reasons for starting the habit. Serious users often graduate from brands that deliver less nicotine to stronger ones. With each use, you need a little more of the drug to get the same feeling.

So What's the Danger?Just like smoking cigarettes, chewing smokeless tobacco can eventually rip apart your body and kill you. It's that simple, really. There's no such thing as a "safe" tobacco product.

Take Bill Tuttle, for example.
An outfielder for the Detroit Tigers, the Kansas City Athletics (before they moved to Oakland), and the Minnesota Twins, Tuttle chewed tobacco for most of his career.

In fact, a lot of Tuttle's baseball cards over the years pictured him with a cheek bulging with chewing tobacco.
Thirty-eight years after the end of his baseball career, Tuttle had a more ominous bulge in his cheek — a huge tumor that was so big that it came through his cheek and extended through his skin.
Doctors removed the tumor, along with much of Tuttle's face. Chewing tobacco as a young man had cost him his jawbone, his right cheekbone, a lot of his teeth and gum line, and his taste buds. Cancer caused by his chewing habit finally claimed him in 1998, but Tuttle spent the rest of his life trying to steer young people, as well as grown athletes, away from smokeless tobacco.

Other baseball players have met a similar fate. Even one of the greatest of all time, Babe Ruth, was fond of dipping and chewing tobacco.

He died at age 52 of an oropharyngeal tumor, which is a cancerous tumor in the back part of the throat.
But, of course, it isn't just baseball players who learn to regret their choice to start chewing tobacco.

According to the CDC, each year about 30,000 Americans learn they have mouth and throat cancers, and nearly 8,000 die of these diseases.
Sadly, only about half of people with diagnosed mouth or throat cancer survive more than 5 years.

What Can Chewing Tobacco Do to Me?The more immediate effects can disrupt your social life: bad breath and yellowish-brown stains on your teeth.
You'll also get mouth sores (about 70% of spit tobacco users have them).
But, it gets a lot more serious than that. Consequences of chewing and spitting tobacco include:
cracking and bleeding lips and gums
receding gums, which can eventually make your teeth fall out
increased heart rate, high blood pressure, and irregular heartbeats, all leading to a greater risk of heart attacks and brain damage (from a stroke)
cancer
Oral cancer means cancer of the mouth and can happen in the lips, the tongue, the floor of the mouth, the roof of the mouth, the cheeks, or gums. It's been medically proven that long-time use of chewing tobacco can lead to cancer. But cancer from chewing tobacco doesn't just occur in the mouth. Some of the cancer-causing agents in the tobacco can get into the lining of your stomach, your esophagus, and into your bladder.
Quitting the DippingIf you're a dipper, put some long thought into breaking the habit and quitting now. When you decide to quit, don't do it alone. Tell friends or family and enlist their support. Strategies for breaking the habit include:
using a nicotine gum or a patch (ask your doctor about these options first)
planning ahead and using substitutes such as tobacco-free, mint-leaf snuff; sugarless gum; hard candy; beef jerky; sunflower seeds; shredded coconut; raisins; or dried fruit
getting involved in healthier activities: lifting weights, shooting baskets, going for a swim, etc.
It's tough to quit, but realize that backsliding is common, so don't give up. Your chances of success increase with each try!

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When your parents were young, people could buy cigarettes and smoke pretty much anywhere — even in hospitals! Ads for cigarettes were all over the place. Today we're more aware about how bad smoking is for our health. Smoking is restricted or banned in almost all public places and cigarette companies are no longer allowed to advertise on TV, radio, and in many magazines.
Almost everyone knows that smoking causes cancer, emphysema, and heart disease; that it can shorten your life by 10 years or more; and that the habit can cost a smoker thousands of dollars a year. So how come people are still lighting up? The answer, in a word, is addiction.
Once You Start, It's Hard to StopSmoking is a hard habit to break because tobacco contains nicotine, which is highly addictive. Like heroin or other addictive drugs, the body and mind quickly become so used to the nicotine in cigarettes that a person needs to have it just to feel normal.
People start smoking for a variety of different reasons. Some think it looks cool. Others start because their family members or friends smoke. Statistics show that about 9 out of 10 tobacco users start before they're 18 years old. Most adults who started smoking in their teens never expected to become addicted. That's why people say it's just so much easier to not start smoking at all.
How Smoking Affects Your HealthThere are no physical reasons to start smoking. The body doesn't need tobacco the way it needs food, water, sleep, and exercise. In fact, many of the chemicals in cigarettes, like nicotine and cyanide, are actually poisons that can kill in high enough doses.
The body is smart. It goes on the defense when it's being poisoned. For this reason, many people find it takes several tries to get started smoking: First-time smokers often feel pain or burning in the throat and lungs, and some people feel sick or even throw up the first few times they try tobacco.

The consequences of this poisoning happen gradually. Over the long term, smoking leads people to develop health problems like heart disease, stroke, emphysema (breakdown of lung tissue), and many types of cancer — including lung, throat, stomach, and bladder cancer. People who smoke also have an increased risk of infections like bronchitis and pneumonia.
These diseases limit a person's ability to be normally active, and they can be fatal. Each time a smoker lights up, that single cigarette takes about 5 to 20 minutes off the person's life.

Smokers not only develop wrinkles and yellow teeth, they also lose bone density, which increases their risk of osteoporosis (pronounced: ahs-tee-o-puh-row-sus), a condition that causes older people to become bent over and their bones to break more easily. Smokers also tend to be less active than nonsmokers because smoking affects lung power.
Smoking can also cause fertility problems and can impact sexual health in both men and women. Girls who are on the pill or other hormone-based methods of birth control (like the patch or the ring) increase their risk of serious health problems, such as heart attacks, if they smoke.
The consequences of smoking may seem very far off, but long-term health problems aren't the only hazard of smoking. Nicotine and the other toxins in cigarettes, cigars, and pipes can affect a person's body quickly, which means that teen smokers experience many of these problems:
Bad skin. Because smoking restricts blood vessels, it can prevent oxygen and nutrients from getting to the skin — which is why smokers often appear pale and unhealthy. An Italian study also linked smoking to an increased risk of getting a type of skin rash called psoriasis.
Bad breath. Cigarettes leave smokers with a condition called halitosis, or persistent bad breath.
Bad-smelling clothes and hair. The smell of stale smoke tends to linger — not just on people's clothing, but on their hair, furniture, and cars. And it's often hard to get the smell of smoke out.
Reduced athletic performance. People who smoke usually can't compete with nonsmoking peers because the physical effects of smoking (like rapid heartbeat, decreased circulation, and shortness of breath) impair sports performance.
Greater risk of injury and slower healing time. Smoking affects the body's ability to produce collagen, so common sports injuries, such as damage to tendons and ligaments, will heal more slowly in smokers than nonsmokers.
Increased risk of illness. Studies show that smokers get more colds, flu, bronchitis, and pneumonia than nonsmokers. And people with certain health conditions, like asthma, become more sick if they smoke (and often if they're just around people who smoke). Because teens who smoke as a way to manage weight often light up instead of eating, their bodies lack the nutrients they need to grow, develop, and fight off illness properly.
Kicking Butts and Staying Smoke FreeAll forms of tobacco — cigarettes, pipes, cigars, and smokeless tobacco — are hazardous. It doesn't help to substitute products that seem like they're better for you than regular cigarettes, such as filtered or low-tar cigarettes.
The only thing that really helps a person avoid the problems associated with smoking is staying smoke free. This isn't always easy, especially if everyone around you is smoking and offering you cigarettes. It may help to have your reasons for not smoking ready for times you may feel the pressure, such as "I just don't like it" or "I want to stay in shape for soccer" (or football, basketball, or other sport).
The good news for people who don't smoke or who want to quit is that studies show that the number of teens who smoke has dropped dramatically. Today, about 23% of high school students smoke.
If you do smoke and want to quit, you have lots of information and support available. Different approaches to quitting work for different people. For some, quitting cold turkey is best. Others find that a slower approach is the way to go. Some people find that it helps to go to a support group especially for teens. These are sometimes sponsored by local hospitals or organizations like the American Cancer Society. The Internet offers a number of good resources to help people quit smoking.
When quitting, it can be helpful to realize that the first few days are the hardest. So don’t give up. Some people find they have a few relapses before they manage to quit for good.
Staying smoke free will give you a whole lot more of everything — more energy, better performance, better looks, more money in your pocket, and, in the long run, more life to live!

funny, i was reading this a few weeks ago

next time just let us know where we can find this little expose of yours: http://kidshealth.org/teen/drug_alcohol/tobacco/smokeless.html)
so you dont have to copy and paste the WHOLE article from that website!

thats just too long to read.

Looks like an interesting article. . .but certainly too long too long to read.

Is there no summary?

Yes you are right there are so many teens today that started smoking. firstly they go for cigarettes cause for style and all that. now there are so many kids that go for pipe smoking cause they understand that pipe smoking is far better then cigarettes.

thanks!!

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glass tobacco pipe

Smoking is injurious not only to the one who is smoking but others around him as well . Smoking tobacco causes serious health risks on the long term and is bound to make your body defunct . Here are some tips which i got from this link ( http://www.lifemojo.com/lifestyle/harmful-effects-of-smoking-2075578 ) to avoid smoking :

Bones: Smoking can cause bones to get weak and brittle. Women need to be especially careful because they are 5 to 10% more likely to suffer from osteoporosis than non-smokers.

Stomach: The damage to your stomach area can affect your vital organs. You have increased chances of getting stomach cancer or ulcers. You are also at risk of developing cancers in your kidney, pancreas and bladder.

Mouth and Throat: Smoking causes unattractive problems like bad breath and stained teeth. It can also cause gum disease and damage to your sense of taste. The most serious damage smoking causes in this area is an increased risk of cancer in your lips, tongue, throat, voice bok and oesophagus (gullet).

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