TFK working with legislators to get spit tobacco out of baseball

Today Tobacco Free Kids launched its "Knock Tobacco Out of the Park" campaign to get spit tobacco out of Major League Baseball.  (The press release is here.)
 
Because the league, owners and players have refused to stop promotting tobacco to millions of people attending and viewing baseball, TFK and other health advocates have been working with lawmakers in Sacramento and San Francisco to introduced legislation  that will eliminate the use of all tobacco products, including smokeless tobacco, at all baseball venues. 
 
The effort is timed to coincide with the start of Spring Training.  The legislation sends a simple and powerful message to kids: baseball and tobacco don’t mix.
 
The “Knock Tobacco Out of the Park” campaign will also soon be inviting people to visit its website, tobaccofreebaseball.org, and create their own personalized baseball cards declaring themselves members of the new “Tobacco-Free All-Star Team.” The campaign will share the cards on social media (using the hashtag #TobaccoFreeBaseball) and display them in a real-time gallery on the website and later deliver them to MLB and the Players Association. The website will also let fans to send messages to MLB and the Players Association telling them to get tobacco out of baseball. California and San Francisco fans can contact their elected officials directly through the site and urge them to support the measures introduced today.
 
And even as cigarette smoking rates continue to drop among youth, smokeless tobacco use has not. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2013, 14.7 percent of high school boys (and 8.8 percent of all high school students) reported current use of smokeless tobacco products, which are as addictive as cigarettes and e-cigarettes and cause oral, pancreatic and esophageal cancer,gum disease, tooth decay and mouth lesion.
 
This legislation and the associated campaign is a great idea that we should all support.