Baseball Season Opens with Historic Limits on Smokeless Tobacco Use

Its opening day for Brewers baseball and I just wanted to remind everyone out there that the 2012 season will be the first ever to be played with restrictions on smokeless tobacco use by big-league players, managers and coaches. This is a huge step in the right direction. Youth look up to these sports stars as role models and the last thing they should see is a big wad of chew in a players mouth.

While these new restrictions are not everything tobacco control advocates hoped for, they do represent significant progress -- if they're enforced.

If you see any player, coach or manager using tobacco at any time during the season, tell the Campagin for Tobacco-Free Kids and their partners by clicking the "Report Use" button at tobaccofreebaseball.org. 

They have also provided a refresher on what the new contract does and does not do -- just click the website's "Learn More" button. You can also like the movement on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TobaccoFreeBaseball or follow the movement on Twitter @tobaccofreeball

Good luck to the Crew today! I'm sure the team will play better being tobacco-free!

Early Indicators Deem CDC Ad Campaign a Success

In the first week of a nationwide CDC ad campaign which depicts graphic images of diseased smokers, more than twice as many people called 1-800-Quit-NOW, then in the week prior to the campaign. The toll- free number received over 33,000 calls, making this the highest call volume ever seen in the seven-year history of the federally sponsored 1-800-QUIT-NOW program. Meanwhile, clicks to the http://www.smokefree.gov/ website went from 20,000 to 66,000, creating the largest jump in traffic ever seen for the website. Although it’s too soon to tell how successful the campaign will be in persuading smokers to quit, the early results are delighting health officials at the CDC. As stated by CDC Director, Dr. Thomas Frieden, “This means tens of thousands of people are seeing the ads and thinking of quitting and trying to quit.”


In Wisconsin, citizens can click on this link for the WI Tobacco Quit Line website http://www.ctri.wisc.edu/quitline.html. Once they have entered the site, they can “click now” to call and speak with a Quit Coach. The website also points to materials, services and information to support them in the quitting process.

Post written by guest blogger Kim Hageman, author of survivingoshkosh.com