Chewing Tobacco

Call this strike one against smokeless tobacco.The summer game's chew of choice was banned in the lowest minor leagues yesterday by Commissioner Fay Vincent. Baseball's first-ever tobacco ban covers all parks in four rookie and short-season Class A leagues of the National Association."This action is part of baseball's overall strategy to educate our players to the health risks associated with the use of smokeless tobacco and to disassociate the game from its use," Mr. Vincent said in a news release issued from the baseball owners meetings in Irving, Texas.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court agreed yesterday to hear a plea by the tobacco industry to be freed from wide-ranging controls by states and cities on how it sells cigarettes, chewing tobacco and cigars. The court accepted two new appeals by the industry as one of its first actions since recessing last month after the hotly disputed election case that cleared the way for former Texas Gov. George W. Bush to win the presidency. The justices showed no sign of wanting to avoid a new controversy.

My boyfriend has started using chewing tobacco. Every time I ask him to stop, he argues that it's safer than cigarettes. How safe is it?Your boyfriend is not unlike many other adolescents and adults who view smokeless tobacco use as "the lesser of two evils."But in reality, users of smokeless tobacco are trading one kind of cancer risk for another. An estimated 30,000 new cancers of the mouth will be detected this year, most of them due to either smoking or smokeless tobacco use.Spit tobacco, moist tobacco and/or snuff (which is not sniffed but placed in the mouth)

A Baltimore County prosecutor said he will seek a 25-year prison term for an 18-year-old Cockeysville man convicted yesterday of first-and second-degree assault in the nearly fatal beating of Hereford Middle School teacher Jason Barnett. State guidelines call for a sentence of up to 18 years. The defendant, Daniel Leksen, showed no emotion as Baltimore County Circuit Judge Robert N. Dugan announced the verdict. Barnett said that testifying in Leksen's daylong trial forced him to relive a terrifying attack.

Smoking cigarettes never appealed to him; it might cut down on his running speed. But in the training camp of the Cleveland Indians he was offered a pouch of chewing tobacco and, in time, became addicted. If teammates packed their jaws with a wad, then why not try it? Peer pressure, of a sort, exhibiting itself in a baseball clubhouse.Now, more than 50 years later, doctors tell Ted Sepkowski, who brought his high school homework with him on the road when he joined the Baltimore Orioles, then of the International League, that problems are developing from the use of tobacco and becoming an increasing concern with athletes of his generation.

Since oral surgeon Dr. Jay I. Chason opened his Westminster practice two years ago, he's come across a dental problem that he didn't expect to see much of -- damage to the mouth caused by chewing tobacco.He's seen about 12 patients, mostly young men between 16 and 22, with white lesions in their mouths from chewing tobacco or using snuff, a finely ground tobacco placed next to the gum.In his years of dental training in Baltimore and New York, Dr. Chason said he rarely saw such cases, and when he did it was in elderly men who had been using chewing tobacco for years.

The nation's fight over tobacco came to Baltimore yesterday with the introduction of a City Council bill that would tax cigars and pipe and chewing tobacco 36 cents to 90 cents per sale.The bill, introduced by Southwest Baltimore Councilman Norman A. Handy Sr., comes a month after the state legislature balked at adding a $1.50-a-pack tax to cigarettes. Although state law controls cigarettes, Maryland is one of only seven states that does not tax cigars and other tobacco.Baltimore becomes the first city in the state to attempt the tax. Montgomery County introduced a similar measure last month.

TACOMA, Wash. -- Former New York Yankees left-hander Ron Guidry was a whiz on the mound, but even more amazing in the clubhouse.Guidry, a Louisiana farm boy, would face the press with a full cheek of chewing tobacco, field the questions politely, and spit into a two-inch soft drink cup, often three or four feet away.His percentage of hits would make the best NBA free-throwers blush.It was the kind of legend that, some think, added color to America's grand old game.At times, it added color to Guidry's complexion.

POLICE LOG* Cooksville: 14100 block of Frederick Road: Jewelry and cash were stolen after an intruder entered through a home's unlocked door Friday morning. Police said a witness saw the suspect leaving the house.* Clarksville: 13600 block of Ten Oaks Road: Police said burglars pried open the front door of a High's store, cut phone lines and took a safe bolted to the floor, chewing tobacco and baseball cards between 2:45 a.m. and 4:15 a.m. Monday.13300 block of Wicklow Place: Someone entered a house under construction and vandalized its interior Friday, police said.

CHICAGO -- There is a tendency among ballplayers, Orioles catcher Gregg Zaun said, to believe that the use of chewing tobacco and dip won't ever hurt them.Even after Los Angeles Dodgers center fielder Brett Butler was found to have cancer of the tonsils Tuesday, Zaun said, "Everybody thinks, 'that'll never happen to me.' I'll be the first to admit that."Zaun, however, is worried. "Scared," he said.He's trying to break a habit that started 10 years ago, something he compares to a drug addiction -- except that he can satisfy his craving by driving down to the local gas station.

WASHINGTON -- Stopping dead one of President Clinton's boldest social policy moves, a deeply divided Supreme Court barred any federal agency yesterday from controlling how cigarettes and other tobacco items are made or sold. Splitting 5-4, the court said Congress has kept for itself "exclusive control" over policy-making on smoking and health. Congress, in 94 years of passing laws to keep the nation's food and drugs safe, has never given any government agency the authority to regulate tobacco's health effects, the court majority added.

WASHINGTON -- One of President Clinton's most prized goals -- imposing federal controls on cigarettes and chewing tobacco to keep them away from children and teen-agers -- appeared to be in serious trouble in the Supreme Court yesterday.A one-hour hearing on one of history's most ambitious public health efforts produced strong signs of either open hostility or skepticism from a number of the justices -- especially one of the court's pivotal members, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.The Food and Drug Administration adopted rules in 1996 to regulate nicotine as a drug and cigarettes and chewing tobacco as devices for delivering the drug into the human body.

WASHINGTON -- Taking on a struggle that is likely to determine the fate of the tobacco industry, the Supreme Court agreed yesterday to rule on the Clinton administration's sweeping plan to control how cigarettes and chewing tobacco are made and sold.Under that plan, aimed mainly at protecting youths, the Food and Drug Administration would restrict minors' access to tobacco items and control the marketing of those products.In the future, the agency could regulate the ingredients of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco, probably to reduce or eliminate nicotine.

For those who favor winding country roads over interstates, the sign is a familiar one: "CHEW MAIL POUCH TOBACCO: TREAT YOURSELF TO THE BEST."The message, painted on old wooden barns in bold block letters, is a fading reminder of a time before telephones and televisions, fax machines and pagers. Once hailed by Congress and featured at a World's Fair, the Mail Pouch ads have become scarce in Maryland and across the nation -- victims of changing times and a changing countryside."It's like having a piece of history in your front yard," said Melissa Phillips, whose barn on the outskirts of Manchester is one of the last in Carroll County to sport a Mail Pouch advertisement.

Baltimore tobacco shops say that a City Council bill proposing to tax cigars and pipe and chewing tobacco sold in the city will wipe out their businesses, costing about 50 jobs.The owners of the Fader's chain and Max's Tobacco Emporium in Fells Point submitted written testimony Wednesday night to the council opposing the 36-cent to 90-cent per sale levy. The shop owners complain that the city tax would force tobacco users to buy their products outside Baltimore."Why send business and jobs out of the city?"

WASHINGTON -- Casting aside an array of government rules aimed at keeping children away from tobacco, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday that Congress did not give the Food and Drug Administration power to control how cigarettes or chewing tobacco are made or sold."

The people who run baseball are toying with the idea of outlawing chewing tobacco. It is one of those politically correct conceits that won't survive and shouldn't anyway.It will be tested this year in a couple of low minor leagues, but the implication is clear. The people who run baseball want to see how it goes, if there is an outcry, if the lawyers show up. If all goes well, maybe they would press upward.What they don't understand, of course, is that the 18-year-olds in the low minors are too terrified to make noise about anything.

For those who favor winding country roads over interstates, the sign is a familiar one: "CHEW MAIL POUCH TOBACCO: TREAT YOURSELF TO THE BEST."The message, painted on old wooden barns in bold block letters, is a fading reminder of a time before telephones and televisions, fax machines and pagers. Once hailed by Congress and featured at a World's Fair, the Mail Pouch ads have become scarce in Maryland and across the nation -- victims of changing times and a changing countryside."It's like having a piece of history in your front yard," said Melissa Phillips, whose barn on the outskirts of Manchester is one of the last in Carroll County to sport a Mail Pouch advertisement.

The nation's fight over tobacco came to Baltimore yesterday with the introduction of a City Council bill that would tax cigars and pipe and chewing tobacco 36 cents to 90 cents per sale.The bill, introduced by Southwest Baltimore Councilman Norman A. Handy Sr., comes a month after the state legislature balked at adding a $1.50-a-pack tax to cigarettes. Although state law controls cigarettes, Maryland is one of only seven states that does not tax cigars and other tobacco.Baltimore becomes the first city in the state to attempt the tax. Montgomery County introduced a similar measure last month.

Snuffing out the hopes of health advocates, a Senate committee rejected legislation yesterday that would have increased the state's tax on cigarettes and created Maryland's first tax on smokeless tobacco products and cigars.The vote by the Budget and Taxation Committee effectively ends debate on the tobacco tax issue for the remainder of the General Assembly's 90-day session, lawmakers said.By the time the panel met to vote on a bill to raise the state's 36-cents-a-pack tax on cigarettes by $1.50, proponents knew that the proposal had no chance of passage.