On Wednesday, major league baseball players in the United States will join with smokers and non-smokers alike in the celebration of the 12th annual World No Tobacco Day (WNTD).

``The World No Tobacco Day is an effort to make a huge public statement (and) to give each person an opportunity in a face-saving way to give the substance up,'' said WNTD co-chair Dr. John R. Seffrin, in an interview with Reuters. ``If smokers succeed in quitting for a day,'' he continued, ``we hope that'll be encouragement for them to quit forever.''

The theme of this year's event is ``Entertainment and Tobacco Promotion -- Countering the Deception.'' Baseball all-stars such as Paul O'Neill, a member of the 1999 Yankee World Championship team, Shawn Green of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and Omar Vizquel of the Cleveland Indians will participate in high school pep rallies in New York and Los Angeles. They will also invite students to sign an over-sized pledge card, vowing either to quit smoking or not to start.

Tobacco is ``one of the most important forms of human addiction on the planet Earth,'' said Seffrin, CEO of the American Cancer Society. Health officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta estimate that by the year 2030, nearly 10 million individuals will die annually from tobacco use. ``Each day, the tobacco industry must recruit 11,000 new users to replace smokers who die,'' they note in a statement.

Sponsored by the Coalition for World No Tobacco Day, the event was established to ``call worldwide attention to the impact of tobacco abuse on public health and reduce individual tobacco-dependence.''

While including public service messages to highlight the dangers of cigarette smoke to non-users, the event also provides smokers with an opportunity to test their willpower to quit. Realizing that the prospect of giving up cigarettes forever may be daunting to many smokers, organizers encourage users to take the little step of quitting for a day. ``If you ask somebody to quit forever, it's sometimes too big a first step to take,'' said Seffrin, ``so quitting for one day gives them a chance to realize they truly can live without that addiction.''

In addition to the national WNTD event, the World Health Organization (WHO) has developed a ``Tobacco Kills--Don't Be Duped'' campaign. The media initiative will include public service announcements ``featuring a super model and pop group,'' and a video showing endorsements of the media initiative by entertainers and sports figures.

``Our decision to focus on the entertainment, film and sports industry is a carefully thought one,'' said WHO Director-General Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland in a statement. ``It is unconventional and unorthodox, but that is precisely why we have chosen it--the tobacco industry strikes where people least suspect it to be,'' she explained.

The Coalition for World No Tobacco Day is a non-profit organization founded by members of various groups including the American Cancer Society, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the American Heart Association, and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. Its mission is to ``raise awareness of WNTD in the Americas by calling attention to the human and economic tolls of the worldwide tobacco epidemic and improve public health by encouraging people not to use tobacco and assisting users to quit.''

For more information about World No Tobacco Day 2000, visit the Coalition for World No Tobacco Day Web site at www.WorldNoTobaccoDay.com or visit www.who.ch