Teen cigarette smoking has been at the center of controversy recently, as legislators and advocates have blasted manufacturers for targeting young people. Meanwhile, and largely unremarked, teenagers are dipping into an even fouler substance: chewing tobacco. Ri'Chard Magee, a reporter with YO! (Youth Outlook), investigates this hidden habit.

It has been known to kill people in various ways (throat cancer, jaw cancer and gum cancer, to name a few). It is the same color as feces, and some say it even tastes the same. The strange part is that people put it in their mouths and chew it nevertheless. But wait--it gets weirder! Today's youth are starting to like it, too!

What could I possibly be talking about? Why, that infamous substance most commonly found in the inside cheek of baseball players, and all around the pitcher's mound on the ground: chewing tobacco.

I used to smoke cigarettes when I was younger. I took my first puff when I was 11 and a half, going on 23. I went to my room, laid down on my bed, and proceeded to die. Yet somehow, over the years, I was able to pick up a cigarette hundreds of times and smoke it up.

One day I realized, of my own accord, that it was a disgusting habit, and quit cold turkey. Now, if smoking tobacco is disgusting, then chewing it is horridly sickening. The idea of placing that nauseating gunk into my cheek, chewing it, and allowing its unnatural juices to blend with my own is akin to imagining a slow, tortuous death. But within the past two years, more and more people within my various circles (work, rap, basketball) have started to chew tobacco. Why, I couldn't imagine--so I just had to ask them.

Dave and I met playing basketball about a year and a half ago, and since then we've hooked up at least twice a week to play. He's one of the most health-conscious people I know, yet he takes great pleasure in sitting down and watching a basketball game with a mouth full of chew. "It's as if I'm chewing gum," he explains. "The only difference is that I'm getting a crazy head rush from this gum."

"Most people initially choose to smoke cigarettes because it's supposed to be cool," Dave continues. "After a while they're addicted and can't stop. Whereas with chewing tobacco, I can chew it maybe twice a day at most and not have to worry about not being able to quit, or catching lung cancer."

Strange, I thought--I've heard smokers say the exact same thing about chewers, except they claim it's throat or mouth cancer they are avoiding by smoking instead of chewing.

I met Shanna during a part-time job I held a couple of years ago, and we've been friends ever since. It was only by promising her lunch during her break that I could get her to talk about life as a closet tobacco chewer (she only does it behind closed doors). "I starting chewing my dad's tobacco when I was about 13," she tells me over coffee. "I was just curious. It was something new. I saw him chewing it and thought, 'If he's doing it, it must be alright.' "

"Where I'm from--Chiapas, Mexico--a lot of men chew tobacco," Shanna continues. "It's considered masculine. I've lost three boyfriends because they wanted me to quit chewing and I refused. It wasn't so much that I didn't want to quit, but I felt they were on a macho trip. They wanted me to give up chewing not for my health but because 'everyone's talking about me--a woman--chewing tobacco."'

If you're secure in your belief that it's OK to chew tobacco, I asked her, why do you only chew in private? "Most people, you included, don't like chewers," she informed me. "You think we're sickening. So as to avoid making anyone dislike me, I prefer to do what I feel like when I'm alone or with others who chew."

At 19 years and six feet two inches, Keith not only plays baseball like a fanatic, but is also on a hockey team and lifts weights. He began chewing tobacco after his father caught him with a pack of cigarettes and flushed them down the toilet. "Two days later," he recalls, "a friend gave me a pack of chewing tobacco, the kind that comes in those containers like the roll-up gum. He showed me how to peel the labels off so that if anyone asked what it was, I could say it was gum. That was four years ago. I've been chewing ever since. I like the way it makes me feel, and it doesn't stink up my clothes or hair and fingers like cigarettes do."

I pointed out that while this may be true, chewing tobacco would still make him susceptible to various forms of cancer. "I know," he admitted. "But I look at it like this: Man is pumping so many steroids and chemicals into our meats and plants that everything I eat kills me. The air is full of so many pollutants that every time I breathe it's killing me. So if doing something that I enjoy is going to kill me, then that's a risk I'm willing to take."