Smokeless Tobacco the Biggest Lie
*Warning this Page is very Vivid in Details*
The Story though is one should be sent to those who have Family and Friends who think Smokeless Tobacco or Smoking is harmless to the body...A True Story and Courageous Man want the Story known
Recopied from Bakersfield Californian
this story also seen on Bakersfield,Ca Channel 23
The Community of Bakersfield is very dedicated to Our Children and Families and Friends so Please share this with Others
Speaker tells teens about lost career, bodily damage
BY EMILY HAGEDORN | Wednesday, May 3 2006 11:17 PM
Last Updated: Wednesday, May 3 2006 11:43 PM
Rick Bender clearly remembers the pink tray the doctor brought in when he had a dime-sized sore on his tongue examined more than 15 years ago.
Photos:
Photo by Henry A. Barrios
Rick Bender, left, speaks to Stockdale High student Daniel Ruiz about chewing tobacco. Ruiz said his father used to chew tobacco and was asking about the effects of chewing tobacco. 
Photo by Henry A. Barrios
Rick Bender gives an anti-tobacco message to Stockdale High students. Bender was disfigured from cancer treatment he needed because of a chewing tobacco habit he had as a young man. He has been traveling the country for 15 years letting people know the dangers of chewing tobacco.
The tray carried a towel, hypodermic needle, vial and scalpel.
“He reached over for that knife — scalpel — and takes a chunk of that sore,” Bender said. “He was taking a biopsy.”
About a week later, Bender was diagnosed with mouth cancer at the age of 26. The minor-league baseball player would endure four surgeries over the next year that would remove half his jaw, all the flesh connecting the right side of his neck, a third of his tongue and damaged nerves in his right arm and shoulder — ending his baseball career.
And the cause: Chewing tobacco, he said.
Bender, 44, told his story to about 550 students at Stockdale High School Wednesday. Stockdale’s baseball team took up most of the first two rows.
“I hate the word ‘smokeless.’ Doesn’t it sound nice and pretty and harmless? Where there’s no smoke, there’s no fire,” he said. “It’s not smokeless, it’s spit tobacco.”
Bender’s face ends after his full, brown mustache. His chin is about as wide as a quarter, with his neck coming up to meet his sliver of a chin and lips.
Three things contributed to Bender’s addiction, he said: peer pressure, tobacco ads and baseball.
“‘Take a pinch instead of a puff.’ ‘Take a pinch instead of a puff,’” he said, reciting the line he had heard from the ads over and over. “Turned out to be the biggest lie I ever heard, and I fell for it.”
Chewing tobacco isn’t safer than smoking, he said. The amount of nicotine absorbed from chewing tobacco is three to four times the amount delivered by a cigarette, according to the National Cancer Institute Web site. It also contains 28 carcinogens, cancer-causing agents.
Bender talked about some of the early signs. He noticed the skin in his lower lip would become thick and leathery, he said. Actually, that was oral leukoplakia, pre-cancerous lesions.
And while people who use chewing tobacco usually get the lesions in their bottom lips, smokers can get it in the roofs of their mouths.
Senior Tyson Jauch said he has noticed similar lesions in his mouth when he uses chewing tobacco.
“I just thought it was callouses,” said Jauch, 17.
Bender’s story made Jauch change his mind about its use, he said. “I just dumped out a whole can of it.”
Gum recession and gum disease is another effect of chewing tobacco, Bender said.
“It actually contains dirt, sand,” he said. “It’s granular. It’s abrasive. It works back and forth (on gums) like a little bit of sandpaper.”
This takes a toll on the teeth.
“Eventually they’re going to fall right out of your mouth,” he said.
One of the problems with chewing tobacco can be the messages coming from home, said Paul Garcia, the tobacco-use prevention education specialist at the school.
“They follow their parents, and then they get peer pressure and their friends are chewing,” said Garcia, who is also the wrestling coach. “Every school has the problem.”
In Kern County, 4.4 percent of people under 18 use chewing tobacco on a regular basis, according to a 2004 report from the Kern County Department of Public Health. The statewide average for 2004 was 3.1 percent.
Bender, who lives in Cadiz, Ky., has talked to professional baseball teams and has appeared on the “Today Show,” MTV and HBO. Above all, he urged anyone who uses tobacco and gets a sore or pain in their mouth, throat or stomach to see a doctor.
“I got a little bit of a lisp. I got a little bit of a slur, but it’s amazing I can still speak,” he said. “I can’t lick my lips. I’ve just got to live with it.”
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