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Tobacco product manufacturers are targeting your children by cleverly disguising smokeless tobacco products. Yet, no matter how it's packaged, it's still nicotine, it's still addictive and its chemicals still cause oral cancer.
Statistics are staggering. About 4,000 youth begin using tobacco every day. Smoked and smokeless tobaccos kill nearly a half-million people every year, even though tobacco usage is the leading preventable cause of death in the U.S.
It is a myth that smokeless tobacco is safer than smoked tobacco. Both contain the same compounds that are known to cause oral cancer.
Oral cancer is not just an adult disease. The number of oral cancer patients under the age of 30 who have no identifiable risk factors of contracting the disease is dramatically increasing.
Smokeless tobaccos include easily concealed gums and strips. One of the newer products is dissolvable tobacco tablets that are packaged to look like candy mints or a cell phone.
Tobacco tablets, gums and strips were created so that anyone could use them without being detected. Placing a package of breath mints and a cell phone next to a package of dissolvable tobacco, you can see how similarly they look and how discreetly the dissolvable tobacco could be hidden in a pocket. In a classroom, who would know that your child just placed a tobacco tablet flavored with vanilla or other flavors instead of a breath mint in her mouth?
Protect your children. It is vital that your child have a dental exam every six months, especially because you may be unaware that your child is using a smokeless tobacco product.
Ask us and we will gladly include an oral cancer exam in your child's hygiene check-ups.