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Major League Baseball has accepted interleague play, the wild card and even video replay in the last 20 years. Now a campaign backed by members of Congress and Commissioner Bud Selig is taking on something that’s been a part of the game’s culture for well over 150 years — chewing tobacco on the field.

Groups like FACT support a classic argument: When ballplayers are seen chewing a wad of tobacco or using dip — products collectively known as other tobacco products— they set a bad health example for kids who look up to the athletes as role models.

Isn’t it time to end this long-running chapter? Let the playoff teams hear your voice today.

And let FACTivist know how you feel about this role model dilemma. Comment here on our blog and on FACT's Facebook page.

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Indonesia is home to the "smoking baby", the tobacco addicted toddler shown chain smoking on a video that went viral worldwide recently. So in the land of the smoking baby Big Tobacco is targeting young men with an ad that claims, "Dying is better than leaving a friend", with that friend being cigaretttes. Big Tobacco is suggesting that death is a better alternative than having to give up their cigarettes and that cigarettes are a friend worth dying for. It is hard to believe that even a cigarette company would call a friend a product that is projected to kill one billion people this century. Read more about this ridiculous ad at Tobacco Free Kids and then post your comment here on FACT's blog page and also join in the conversation on FACT's Facebook page by clicking here.

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A green cigarette? An eco-friendly cigarette? This is yet another attempt by a tobacco company to downplay how deadly and addictive cigarettes truly are, this time by marketing a cigarette brand as "environmentally friendly".  Consumers should not be deceived: There is nothing healthy or environmentally responsible about Natural American Spirit cigarettes or any cigarettes. “It's trying to green wash a deadly and addictive product," says Vince Willmore of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, adding research which shows cigarettes also are the No. 1 source of litter. Cigarette smoke spews more than 7,000 chemicals into the environment, including hundreds that are toxic and at least 69 that cause cancer. When will cigarette companies stop trying every trick in the advertising book to get people to use their deadly products? This is getting old real fast. Let FACTivists around Wisconsin know about this decietful marketing trend by commenting here or on FACT's Facebook page by clicking here.

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Big Tobacco: Who do you think you are? You pollute my planet with the number one form of litter, cigarette butts, which scatter the ground almost everywhere I step. You destroy the air which my family and I breathe with your product and you kill almost half a million people each year in the U.S. alone. And now you want to launch a campaign called, “Preserving the Land We All Call Home” to clean up and better the earth?! What about skipping this façade and preserving the lives of the people we call family? How stupid do you think we are? I am going to let FACTivists know how I feel about Big T’s Earth Day sham to save the planet over its customers! Will you? Click here to share your thoughts on FACTs Facebook page or comment here on our blog.

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Philip Morris International CEO Louis Camilleri today stated at the company's annual shareholder meeting in New York that, while cigarettes are addictive, "it is not that hard to quit." Wrong! This is a highly irresponsible, self-serving and scientifically inaccurate statement by Philip Morris International, the world's largest multinational tobacco company. Mr. Camilleri's statement also shows that Philip Morris International truly has not changed despite its claims of being a reformed and responsible company. Let FACTivist know how you feel about this bold faced lie!! Comment here and on FACT's Facebook page. Did I mention that he makes more money annually than the entire Tobacco Prevention & Control Program has for their annual funding!

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Smokeless tobacco harms baseball players — from Babe Ruth to Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn to our very own Milwaukee Brewer, Prince Fielder.
This week, two Democratic senators are asking baseball commissioner Bud Selig to ban all tobacco use in the sport, specifically citing the same deadly other tobacco products our Manipulicious campaign is targeting.
"The use of smokeless tobacco by baseball players undermines the positive image of the sport and sends a dangerous message to young fans, who may be influenced by the players they look up to as role models," the senators wrote.
For years Big Tobacco companies have used baseball players as advertising puppets by providing the players with “smokeless” tobacco products. Since players can use the spit tobacco while they play, the industry had a new, virtually free advertising medium.
This year, Major League Baseball and the players union are negotiating a new contract that can finally make baseball tobacco-free by calling on the MLB to Knock Tobacco out of the Park! Click here to bench big tobacco.
Ride the pine Big T!!

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Big T is up to its old tricks, again. Now, it’s focusing on youth more than ever. Dissolvables are smokeless tobacco products that dissolve in the mouth. So, instead of having to spit out the disgusting tobacco juice, full of carcinogens, the user ingests it—Are you kidding me!! To add to this, the products are now packaged like CANDY.Camel has taken its product out of the current test markets in Portland, Indiana, and Ohio, in order to do “further refinement”. Great. I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before we see this deadly, more “refined” product in Wisconsin. Stay informed—and tell your friends! Fight ON! For more information on the Monitoring the Future Survey Data, a survey that explains the rise in other tobacco use among teens, click here.

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Did you know that now you can smell snus without even buying it? Camel has started to mail its users scratch ‘n sniff postcards (to see click here), so they can give each flavor a sniff before they commit to an entire tin.
Remember scratch ‘n sniff stickers? I do. I loved getting them from the doctor—WHEN I WAS A CHILD!!!
This is just another way that tobacco companies are selling products based on our childhood pleasures—candy, bright colors, and sweet, smelly paper. I won’t stand for it!
Will you? Post your comments on our FACT Facebook page.
 Fight ON!

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Joe Camel may have been put out to pasture, but his spirit lives on in R.J. Reynolds' latest marketing campaign that once again tries to make Camel cigarettes cool, fun and rebellious – and appealing to kids.  The new campaign cynically uses the names and images of trendy U.S. destinations, including Seattle, Austin, San Francisco, Las Vegas, New Orleans, and Brooklyn's Williamsburg neighborhood, in an attempt to make Camel cigarettes cool again.  RJR has unveiled cigarette pack designs bearing the name of each city on its Camel web site and has told the media that it will sell limited edition cigarette packs with the city names in December and January.

Visitors to the Camel web site can win prizes by reading a clue and guessing where Camel is that week.  Each week, a new package design for Camel cigarettes is unveiled that features the name of that week's location and some of its iconic images.

This campaign echoes many of the youth-appealing themes of the Joe Camel campaign of the past, in which the now-banned cartoon camel was often depicted with fast cars and motorcycles or having fun at parties.

So…

Is R.J. Reynolds’ violating the 1998 state tobacco settlement’s prohibition on tobacco marketing that targets you, our nation’s youth?

By connecting these trendy locations and Camel cigarettes, is this the Joe Camel campaign all over again?

More information and the original source of this article can be found at TobaccoFreeKids.org.

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What up FACT? Big T is at it again: the Smashing Pumpkins, Dashboard Confessional, and MUTEMATH are all playing at a music festival in Indonesia that has accepted tobacco sponsorship from Gudang Garam. 20,000 people die each year from tobacco related illnesses in Indonesia and Big Tobacco is *selling discounted tickets to students*--Can you believe this?

We just got Kelly Clarkson to drop her tobacco sponsorship a few months ago, and Big T still thinks they can take over OUR music?! I refuse to help them increase their profits, ARE YOU WITH ME?

Tell the Smashing Pumpkins, Dashboard Confessional, and MUTEMATH to reject tobacco sponsorship of their show in Indonesia.
or

Click here to post on their Facebook wall.

I know I won't stand for this. I challenge you to get at least 5 friends to write on their facebook wall about this crap.
Fight ON!

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