Anti-Smoking Campaign Targets Teen Dip Users In Rural Georgia

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A new anti-smoking campaign is spending $6 million in Georgia and other states with high rates of smokless tobacco use.

Chewing tobacco is a rite of passage for many teenage boys in rural parts of Georgia. That perception is the problem, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

Young boys who see their fathers, uncles and older brothers dipping tobacco are the ones at greatest risk of starting the addictive habit, Mitch Zeller said. He's the director of the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products, which expanded this week its "The Real Cost" smokeless tobacco prevention campaign.

They're spending an additional $6 million in Georgia and 19 other states to show kids — graphically — that "smokeless doesn't mean harmless."

"We've reduced the message to a very simple tagline," Zeller said. "You can become addicted to this product. You can suffer gum disease and tooth loss, and smokeless tobacco can cause cancer."

The anti-smoking campaign has been active the last five years, spending tens of millions to reduce the number of kids becoming regular smokers "by hundreds of thousands and saving society over $30 billion in health care costs that otherwise would have been incurred later in life," Zeller said. But now the FDA is drilling down on at-risk rural teens.

RELATED: New Study Says Georgia Ranks Near The Bottom For Teen Smoking Prevention

The graphic advertisements, interactive games and digital media that at-risk boys are going to see when they are online and using social media will cause them to rethink the assumptions that they've made about smokeless tobacco, Zeller said.

While Zeller focused on the above-normal rates of chewing tobacco users in rural parts of the state, vaping among teens has increased dramatically in the last year.

Juul, a device for inhaling heated nicotine and other flavors, has exploded in sales over the last year, but some teens don't even realize they are inhaling an addictive substance, according to a recent report released by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

NIDA Deputy Director Wilson Compton said he is concerned by the survey result showing 17 percent of eighth graders endorse vaping.

"That means that 13, 14, and 15-year-olds are using these vaping products in just surprising numbers," he said. "That's a period of intense development of the brain, and exposure to substances early in the teens really primes the brain for a much higher likelihood of addiction later on."

Zeller said that overall tobacco use remains the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the country, and 90 percent of all cigarette smokers started smoking before the age of 18.