tobacco

1. Any of various plants of the genus Nicotiana, especially N. tabacum, native to tropical America and widely cultivated for their leaves, which are used primarily for smoking.
2. The leaves of these plants, dried and processed chiefly for use in cigarettes, cigars, or snuff or for smoking in pipes.
3. Products made from these plants.
4. The habit of smoking tobacco: I gave up tobacco.
5. A crop of tobacco.

[Spanish tabaco, possibly of Caribbean origin.]

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The plant genus Nicotiana, certain species in the genus, and dried leaves of these plants are all called tobacco. Most often tobacco means a leaf product containing 1–3% of the alkaloid nicotine, which produces a narcotic effect when smoked, chewed, or snuffed. The plant N. rustica provides tobacco in parts of Europe, but the tobacco of world commerce is N. tabacum. Tobacco is American in origin. See also Solanales.

Tobacco, one of the most widely used addictive substances in the world, is a plant native to the Americas and historically one of the half-dozen most important crops grown by American farmers. From 1617 to 1793 tobacco was the most valuable staple export from the English American mainland colonies and the United States. Until the 1960s, the United States not only grew but also manufactured and exported more tobacco than any other country. Since 1964 conclusive epidemiological evidence of the deadly effects of tobacco consumption has led to a sharp decline in official support for producers and manufacturers of tobacco, in spite of its indisputably large contribution to the agricultural, fiscal, manufacturing, and exporting sectors of the economy.

By 1617 John Rolfe's experiments with Spanish tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) had provided the English settlement in Virginia with a staple export of high value in proportion to the cost of its transportation across the Atlantic. As a result tobacco served as the chief incentive for the subsequent demographic and economic growth of the colonial Chesapeake. English merchants supplied colonists with manufactured goods and bound labor and took their profits primarily from the return cargoes of tobacco. Before the last quarter of the seventeenth century the bond servants who grew tobacco came primarily from the British Isles, but thereafter the laborers were principally black slaves from the West Indies and Africa. These laborers, settled on small plantations or quarters, swelled the population of the Chesapeake colonies from a few hundred in 1618 to perhaps thirty-five thousand by 1675 and well over half a million by 1776. The quantity of tobacco shipped to Great Britain rose from twenty thousand pounds in 1617 to over 40 million pounds in 1727, and even as the agricultural economy became diversified after 1700, colonists continued to produce ever larger crops of tobacco. Tobacco inspection systems enacted by Virginia in 1730 and by Maryland in 1747 improved the quality of Chesapeake tobacco exported to Britain and from there to the Continent. The huge crops (averaging 100 million pounds in the early 1770s) and low price of Chesapeake tobacco overwhelmed its European competitors. By 1775, not only England but much of Europe depended on the Chesapeake for tobacco.

The American and French revolutions and the Napoleonic Wars temporarily curtailed the European demand for Chesapeake tobacco. But a growing domestic market in the United States and a reviving European market after 1815 consumed ever larger quantities of tobacco, now extensively grown in North Carolina as well as in the new states of the Mississippi valley. Between the late eighteenth century and 1860, moreover, slave labor predominated in both the cultivation of tobacco and its manufacture into plugs and twists in southern factories. In the North, however, the manufacture of snuff and cigars remained largely the operation of whites. By 1860 the United States produced more than twice as much tobacco as in 1775, though a good half of it was now consumed domestically.

From the time of Elizabeth I until 1700, Europeans characteristically consumed tobacco in small-bowled clay pipes with long stems. In the eighteenth century the taking of snuff, known to the Indians but made fashionable by the French, largely displaced smoking among the aristocracy and the more cultivated city folk of Britain and Europe. In America the colonists, too, smoked clay pipes, but in the early nineteenth century the "chaw" became popular. The proclivities of American tobacco-chewers, whose amber streams seemed frequently to miss whatever cuspidor was available, often disgusted foreign visitors.

The Civil War gave a boost to the consumption of tobacco in the portable forms of cigars and the relatively new cigarettes. Within a decade after Appomattox, American production of tobacco had nearly doubled again, led by increased demand for smoking tobacco and cigarettes, at that time still made by hand. With slavery at an end, small independent farmers, mostly white, and tenant farmers, both black and white, grew most of the tobacco; their families assisted in cultivation. New centers for the manufacture of smoking tobacco and cigarettes followed the culture of bright leaf, flue-cured tobacco to Durham and Winston-Salem, North Carolina. There, in the next quarter century, James Buchanan Duke and R. J. Reynolds used aggressive advertising, the most efficient machinery available, and big-business techniques for eliminating competition to create multimillion-dollar corporations, among the largest and most profitable in the United States. Per capita consumption of chewing tobacco declined after 1890. By the 1920s annual per capita consumption of cigarettes in the United States approached one thousand, and advertisers began targeting women. The cigarette age had arrived.

Between 1929 and 1989, government, science, and technology transformed tobacco culture into agribusiness by legislation, invention, and mechanization. Tobacco farmers prospered from government price support programs from 1934 through 1981, but the advent in 1969 of a successful tobacco harvesting machine for bright leaf tobacco spelled the end of tobacco farming as a labor-intensive, family-farm operation. By the early 1980s almost 50 percent of flue-cured tobacco was harvested by machine. Burley tobacco (grown chiefly in Kentucky and Tennessee) enjoyed fewer economies of scale and mechanization, but high leaf yields kept it competitive for cigarette blending.

Between 1930 and 1979 per capita consumption of cigarettes in the United States almost tripled, increasing from 972 to 2,775. The 1930s also produced the first widely noted scientific studies associating smoking "with a definite impairment of longevity," but these early warnings left tobacco manufacturers free to market their cigarettes (albeit with cost-saving filter tips) to a largely uninformed public. Ignorance ended on January 11, 1964, when Luther L. Terry, surgeon general of the United States, issued the report of a blue-ribbon advisory committee, which condemned cigarette smoking "in such clear and concise language that it could not be misunderstood." Every surgeon general since Terry has campaigned against smoking. Governments in most of the industrialized nations adopted a variety of policies to curtail or prohibit cigarette smoking. In response to the worldwide decline in smoking among the better educated, the multinational manufacturers of cigarettes skillfully targeted advertising campaigns at specific groups among less well-educated Americans and increased exports of cigarettes to less-developed nations.

Bibliography:

Pete Daniel, Breaking the Land: The Transformation of Cotton, Tobacco, and Rice Cultures since 1880 (1985); Joseph C. Robert, The Story of Tobacco in America (1949).

Author:

John M. Hemphill II

See also Chesapeake Colonies; Colonial Economy; Plantation System.

Tobacco first attracted attention in Europe as an Amerindian curiosity. Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, Jacques Cartier, and other European explorers reported the apparently omnipresent but varied use of a green herb by the people they encountered. For recreational, spiritual, and medicinal reasons, tobacco was externally applied to wounds, chewed (alone or with other substances), inhaled as a powder, or smoked (through canes, as rolled up leaves, or stuffed into a reed or a pipe). In the mid-sixteenth century, European scholars described the strange New World plant as part of the botanical renaissance. By the late 1560s, tobacco's medicinal properties were being widely investigated by people such as Conrad Gessner in Zurich, Pietro Mattioli in Bohemia and, most famously, by the French ambassador to Lisbon, Jean Nicot. In 1571, Nicolás Monardes, a physician of Seville, presented an influential assessment of the medical use of Nicotiana. His text, the English translation of which was entitled Joyfull Newes out of the Newe Founde Worlde (1577), became a standard medical textbook across Europe. Monardes told physicians that tobacco had antiseptic and analgesic properties and could tackle a host of conditions from chilblains to intestinal worms and from halitosis to gout. Tobacco was used in a variety of ointments and poultices, formulas, and concoctions.

Smokers and Smoking

While European science was discovering the medicinal potential of tobacco, Europeans in the New World were experimenting with more medicinally ambiguous patterns and modes of ingestion by smoking, snuffing, and chewing tobacco as part of their everyday lives. By 1550 smoking was prevalent in Spanish, Portuguese, and French colonial outposts. Sailors and adventurers returning from the New World brought their tobacco-consuming habits back with them to European ports. Particularly in London in the 1590s, putting dried leaves from a faraway land "in a pipe set on fire and suckt into the stomacke, and thrust foorth again at the nosthrils" became a popular pastime (Gerard, p. 287). Smokers such as Sir Walter Raleigh and Christopher Marlowe made smoking fashionable, particularly in male society. Numerous depictions of smoking soon appeared in poems and plays, such as Ben Jonson's Every Man out of His Humour (1600), in which smoking was often seen as a gentlemanly recreation. Perceptions of women smoking were generally negative but, as numerous seventeenth-century Dutch paintings, and plays such as Jonson's Bartholomew Fair (1611) illustrate, some women did smoke.

Smoking spread in England as a social activity (often in alehouses) and was commonly referred to as "drinking" tobacco. The practice quickly became controversial, prompting a medical and moral debate in the early seventeenth century. Smokers proclaimed tobacco's medicinal benefits: "nothing that harmes a man inwardly from his girdle upward, but may be taken away with a moderate use of Tabacco" (Chute, p. 19). Critics such as King James I & VI, who wrote A Counterblaste to Tobacco in 1604, condemned smokers for their wanton abuse of the new medicine and for their patently non-medicinal, wasteful, and apparently compulsive consumption. Smoking had been identified as a vice. English physicians, while confirming the medicinal power of tobacco, warned against unnecessary and excessive smoking because it could disrupt humoral balance, provoking death "before either Nature urge, Maladie enforce, or Age require it" (Gardiner). Some commentators argued that smoking bred soot and cobwebs in the body, leading to enfeeblement, infertility, and a thirst for alcohol.

Despite such warnings, in the first half of the seventeenth century smoking and other recreational forms of tobacco use continued to spread in England and across Europe. The Dutch were particularly avid smokers and were soon growing tobacco and manufacturing distinctive pipes, such as the meerschaum. In France, state-regulated tobacco cultivation supplied French smokers and snuff-takers. By 1650, the use of tobacco as a medicine was widely accepted throughout Europe, but in many countries attempts were made to curb its recreational use. In Sicily, the pipe was declared illegal. In Denmark, Sweden, parts of Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Hungary attempts were made to prohibit smoking, prevent tobacco cultivation, and inhibit its importation. The Russian patriarch considered smoking a deadly sin and in 1634 banned it on pain of execution for persistent offenders. In 1642, following a complaint by the dean of Seville that the entrance to his church was being defiled by tobacco juice, Pope Urban VIII threatened both clergy and congregation with excommunication if they smoked, chewed, or snuffed tobacco in church. Pope Innocent X issued another antismoking bull in 1650.

Tobacco and Economies

Persistent and growing demand for tobacco in Europe promoted increasing crop cultivation in the New World. Spanish, Portuguese, and English colonies thrived by exporting vast quantities of the plant grown by slaves and indentured servants on large plantations. In 1626, 500,000 pounds of Virginia tobacco reached England. By the late 1630s, millions of pounds of tobacco were being shipped each year from Virginia, Maryland, and the English Caribbean, much of it re-exported to mainland Europe and beyond. As production increased, prices fell, making tobacco more readily available to all social classes. The growing international trade in tobacco attracted mercantile investment and presented governments with tax-raising opportunities. In England, where tobacco growing had been prohibited since 1619 (to aid colonial producers), substantial revenues were generated from customs and other duties on tobacco. Ongoing complaints about the dangers of smoking to body and soul were subsumed by the vested interests of the governments, colonists, and merchants responsible for supplying tobacco to consumers.

Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Europeans continued to find medical uses for tobacco and to consume it for pleasure. Ornate tobacco pipes and snuffboxes were produced, offering opportunities for the display of status and refinement. In eighteenth-century England, snuff became particularly popular. Later, the cigars favored by Spanish consumers distinguished the gentlemen from the more plebeian smokers of clay pipes. Whatever the status of the consumer or the mode of ingestion, tobacco had become as integrated into European culture and society as it had been in pre-Columbian America. Like tea, coffee, and sugar, tobacco had become an integral part of European lifestyles.

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Chute, Anthony. Tabacco. London, 1595.

Gardiner, Edmund. The Triall of Tabacco. London, 1611. Original title: Phisicall and Approved Medicines, 1610.

Gerard, John. The Herball, or, Generall Historie of Plantes: Gathered by John Gerarde. London, 1597.

James I & VI, King. A Counterblaste to Tobacco. London, 1604.

Monardes, Nicolás. Joyfull Newes out of the Newe Founde Worlde. London, 1577.

Secondary Sources

Dickson, Sarah A. Panacea or Precious Bane: Tobacco in Sixteenth Century Literature. New York, 1954.

Goodman, Jordan. Tobacco in History: The Cultures of Dependence. London and New York, 1993.

Price, Jacob M. Tobacco in Atlantic Trade: The Chesapeake, London, and Glasgow, 1675–1775. Aldershot, 1995.

Stewart, Grace. "A History of the Medicinal Use of Tobacco 1492–1860." Medical History 11 (1967): 228–268.

Walton, James, ed. The Faber Book of Smoking. London, 2000.

—A. R. ROWLEY

For centuries the leaves of the tobacco plant have been used for making smoking tobacco and chewing tobacco. Tobacco contains small amounts of nicotine, a stimulant that acts on the heart and other organs and the nervous system when tobacco is inhaled, ingested, or absorbed. Nicotine's effect on the nervous system causes people to become addicted to it, and the stimulating effects make smoking and chewing tobacco pleasurable. Concentrated amounts of nicotine are poisonous, however. Although the use of tobacco was condemned on occasion in the past, not until the latter half of the twentieth century have concerted efforts been made to curb tobacco use in the United States.

History

Before the arrival of Europeans in America, Native Americans were growing and harvesting tobacco to be smoked in pipes. Europeans exploring America learned of this practice and took tobacco seeds back to Europe where tobacco was grown and used as a medicine to help people relax. European physicians believed that tobacco should be used only for medicinal purposes. Commercial production of tobacco began in the colony of Virginia in the early seventeenth century where it soon became an important crop. The expansion of tobacco farming, especially in the southern colonies, contributed to the demand for and practice of slavery in America. Most tobacco grown in the American colonies was shipped to Europe until the Revolutionary War, when manufacturers began using their crops to produce chewing and smoking tobacco.

The use of tobacco for other than medicinal purposes was controversial, however: the Puritans in America believed that tobacco was a dangerous narcotic. Nevertheless, chewing and smoking tobacco became increasingly popular. Cigars were first manufactured in the United States in the early nineteenth century. Hand-rolled cigarettes became popular in the mid-nineteenth century, and by the 1880s, a cigarette-making machine had been invented. In the twentieth century tobacco use, especially cigarette smoking, continued to expand in the United States.

By the 1960s, however, scientists had confirmed that smoking could cause lung cancer, heart disease, and other illnesses. Some cigarette manufacturers reacted to these findings by reducing the levels of nicotine and tar in their cigarettes, but the medical community established that these measures did not eliminate the health risks of smoking. Subsequently, extensive research linked cigarette smoking and tobacco chewing to many serious illnesses.

In 1990 an estimated 419,000 deaths in the United States were directly attributable to smoking. The American Cancer Society estimated that smoking caused nearly one-third of all cancer deaths in 1995. Tobacco is responsible for more deaths in the United States than car accidents, acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), alcohol, illegal drugs, homicides, suicides, and fires combined.

Medical research has not only proved that smoking is injurious to the health of the smoker, but it has also established that nonsmokers can be harmed by inhaling the cigarette smoke of others. This type of smoke is called secondhand smoke, passive smoke, involuntary smoke, or environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). In 1993 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) classified ETS as a known human (Group A) carcinogen because it causes lung cancer in adult nonsmokers and impairs the respiratory and cardiovascular health of nonsmoking children. ETS, which is the third leading preventable cause of death in the United States, contains the same carcinogenic compounds as are found in the smoke inhaled by smokers.

As these research findings have appeared, concern over tobacco's effect on health has played an important role in encouraging government regulation of tobacco. At the same time, however, the popularity of tobacco use has resulted in considerable political and financial strength for the tobacco industry. By the 1990s tobacco had become the seventh largest cash crop in the United States, and tobacco growers and manufacturers were realizing $47 billion annually. With such revenues available, the tobacco industry has been able to exert significant influence over tobacco regulation. In 1995 the tobacco industry gave more than $1 million directly to politicians and nearly $3 million in "soft money" (unrestricted donations to political party organizations). Because the industry is also central to the economies of many tobacco-producing states, members of Congress from those states have opposed restrictions on tobacco companies.

Despite the tobacco companies' efforts, the industry is subject to extensive federal and state regulation. Among the federal agencies with minor regulatory interests in tobacco and tobacco products are the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Agriculture, and the Internal Revenue Service. Federal agencies with broader power to regulate tobacco include the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and, the most recent to assert jurisdiction, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Federal Regulation of Tobacco Advertising and Labeling

In the 1950s the federal government began to regulate the sale and production of chewing and smoking tobacco because of the growing concern over its adverse effects on the health of consumers. Traditionally, the FTC was the federal agency primarily responsible for the regulation of tobacco products, especially with regard to labeling and advertising. In 1955 the FTC promulgated guidelines that prohibited cigarette advertisements from carrying therapeutic health claims. In 1964 the commission issued a Trade Regulation Rule on Cigarette Labeling and Advertising that strictly controlled the advertising and labeling of tobacco products. The FTC claimed that the failure to warn consumers of the dangers of smoking constituted an unfair and deceptive trade practice under the Federal Trade Commission Act (15 U.S.C.A. § 41 [1994]).

Shortly after the FTC issued its trade regulation rule, Congress intervened by enacting the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act (FCLAA) (15 U.S.C.A. § 1331 et seq. [1965]), which was more moderate than the FTC regulation and preempted agency action. The FCLAA required that a health warning be conspicuously displayed on all packages and cartons of cigarettes. As originally enacted, the FCLAA required only the warning, "Caution: Cigarette Smoking May Be Hazardous to Your Health." Subsequently, however, this act was amended to require more explicit warnings. Under amendments added in 1984, cigarette manufacturers must use one of the following labels to satisfy the health warning requirement:

SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Smoking Causes Lung Cancer, Heart Disease, Emphysema, and May Complicate Pregnancy.

SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Quitting Smoking Now Greatly Reduces Serious Risks to Your Health.

SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Smoking by Pregnant Women May Result in Fetal Injury, Premature Birth, and Low Birth Weight.

SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Cigarette Smoke Contains Carbon Monoxide.

The warning labels must also appear on all cigarette advertising, including magazine advertisements and billboards.

In 1986 Congress enacted the Comprehensive Smokeless Tobacco Health Education Act (CSTHEA) (15 U.S.C.A. § 4401 et seq.), which requires smokeless tobacco products to carry one of the following warning labels:

"WARNING: THIS PRODUCT MAY CAUSE MOUTH CANCER"

"WARNING: THIS PRODUCT MAY CAUSE GUM DISEASE AND TOOTH LOSS"

"WARNING: THIS PRODUCT IS NOT A SAFE ALTERNATIVE TO CIGARETTES"

The CSTHEA also requires all manufacturers, packagers, and importers of smokeless tobacco to provide the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services with a list of all ingredients used in the manufacture of the product, as well as the quantity of nicotine contained in the product. The act further requires the secretary to report biennially to Congress with a summary of research on the health effects of smokeless tobacco, information about whether its ingredients pose a health risk, and recommendations for legislative or administrative action. Finally, the act requires the FTC to report biennially to Congress about the state of smokeless tobacco sales, advertising, and marketing practices and also to make recommendations for legislative or administrative action. Amendments to the FCLAA require similar reports on smoking tobacco products.

In 1967 the FCC decided to act upon citizen complaints it had received regarding broadcast cigarette advertising. The FCC implemented a rule requiring any station that broadcast cigarette advertising to also air public service announcements prepared by various health organizations in an effort to inform listeners and viewers of the dangers of smoking. This FCC regulation was challenged in the courts but upheld under the fairness doctrine, which requires broadcasters to provide a balanced representation and fair coverage of controversial issues of public importance (Banzhaf v. FCC, 405 F.2d 1082 [D.C. Cir. 1968]).

A few years later, Congress also intervened on the issue of broadcast advertising, electing to ban all television and radio advertising of cigarettes. Congress enacted the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act of 1969 (Pub. L. No. 91-222, § 6, 84 Stat. 87, 89), which was codified as an amendment to the earlier FCLAA. The new regulations took effect in 1971 and prohibited all advertising of cigarettes and small cigars via electronic communication, subject to the jurisdiction of the FCC (15 U.S.C.A. § 1335). The tobacco companies challenged the constitutionality of the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act, but it was upheld by the courts (Capital Broadcasting Co. v. Mitchell, 333 F. Supp. 582 [D.D.C. 1971], aff'd mem., 405 U.S. 1000, 92 S. Ct. 1289, 321 L. Ed. 2d 472 [1982]). Beginning in 1986, Congress also made it illegal to advertise smokeless tobacco on any medium of electronic communication that is subject to the jurisdiction of the FCC (15 U.S.C.A. § 4402(f)).

The FCLAA, as amended by the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act of 1969, did not work wholly to the detriment of the tobacco industry. In fact, some legal commentators argue that it actually benefited the tobacco companies. The warning labels that were required to help inform consumers of the health risks associated with tobacco worked to provide the manufacturers with a shield against tort liability. In fact, before the matter was taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1992, several circuit courts held that the FCLAA had preempted state claims against the tobacco companies based on a failure-to-warn legal theory (see Pennington v. Vistron Corp., 876 F.2d 414 [5th Cir. 1989]; Roysdon v. R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 849 F.2d 230 [6th Cir. 1988]; Palmer v. Liggett Group, 825 F.2d 620 [1st Cir. 1987]; Stephen v. American Brands, 825 F.2d 312 [11th Cir. 1987]). In Cipollone v. Liggett Group, 505 U.S. 504, 112 S. Ct. 2608, 120 L. Ed. 2d 407 [1992], the U.S. Supreme Court held that the FCLAA had preempted state law damage claims based on a failure to warn and the neutralization of federally mandated warnings to the extent that those claims relied on omissions or inclusions in the manufacturers' advertisements or promotions. The Supreme Court also held, however, that the FCLAA did not preempt claims based on strict liability, negligent design, express warranty, intentional fraud and misrepresentation, or conspiracy.

The tobacco industry also benefited indirectly from the FCLAA's ban on advertising because when television advertising ceased, so did the antismoking public service messages that broadcasters were previously required to air. In fact, Judge Skelly Wright, the author of the dissenting opinion in Capital Broadcasting Co., noted that the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act of 1969 was a legislative coup on the part of the tobacco industry. Wright accurately predicted that the loss of the broadcast antismoking messages would result in a rise in cigarette consumption.

Federal and State Regulation of Tobacco through Taxation

In 1994 the tobacco industry spent an estimated $4 billion on tobacco advertising. Even though cigarettes cannot be advertised on radio or television, they are the most heavily advertised product in the United States.

In the early 1990s, in an attempt to raise revenue for the federal government, bills were introduced in Congress to restrict the amount of advertising expenses that tobacco manufacturers could deduct from their gross income. In 1993 tobacco companies deducted an estimated $1 billion from their gross income for advertising expenses. The proposed bills would have used the extra revenue to fund education programs to stop underage smokers and to reduce the federal deficit. The bills did not become law, however.

States have long collected excise taxes on sales of cigarettes. As of 1995, Washington State imposed the highest excise tax, at 85 cents per pack, and Missouri had one of the lowest, at 17 cents per pack. Excise taxes were also imposed on chewing tobacco products. Studies completed in the 1980s demonstrated that as the price of chewing and smoking tobacco increases, consumption of those products decreases.

Federal Regulation of Tobacco as a Drug

In 1988 the surgeon general of the United States issued a report detailing the addictive effects of nicotine. Later scientific studies confirmed this finding. Despite this research the tobacco companies continued to deny that any relation existed between smoking and disease or that smoking was addictive. In an April 1994 congressional hearing on nicotine manipulation, the chief executive officers of seven tobacco companies testified under oath that they believed nicotine is not addictive and that smoking has not been shown to cause cancer. Later, however, some former tobacco company officials publicly confessed that cigarette manufacturers had long known about the health hazards of smoking and had deliberately concealed that information from the public. The first and perhaps best known of these officials was Jeffrey Wigand, the former head of research at Brown and Williamson, one of the large tobacco companies. Voluminous internal records showing that cigarette manufacturers were aware of the dangers of smoking, including the addictive properties of nicotine, were also leaked to the public. One paralegal at Brown and Williamson copied more than four thousand documents and provided them to tobacco opponents. An annotated compilation of those documents was published in 1996 under the title The Cigarette Papers. As a direct result of this growing body of information demonstrating that the manufacturers knew that nicotine in smoking and chewing tobacco can lead to addiction, the FDA in 1994 began examining whether nicotine qualified as a drug under the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (21 U.S.C.A. § 301 et seq.), and thus could be regulated as such by the FDA.

The FDA had formerly asserted jurisdiction over tobacco products only to the extent that they carried therapeutic claims. By 1996, however, the FDA had determined that cigarettes and other tobacco products are intended by their manufacturers to be delivery devices for nicotine, a drug resulting in significant pharmacological effects on the body, including addiction. Based on the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act definition of a drug as an article "intended to affect the structure or any function of the body" and on the FDA's determination that the cigarette and smokeless tobacco manufacturers "intend" these effects, the FDA declared in August 1996 that it had jurisdiction to regulate tobacco products.

The FDA then announced that it would begin by regulating the sale and distribution of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products to children and adolescents. The issue of children smoking has aroused widespread concern. Studies in the late 1980s and early 1990s demonstrated that despite state laws prohibiting the use of tobacco before the age of eighteen, children had easy access to tobacco products and many had become regular smokers before their eighteenth birthday. In 1996 the FDA estimated that 4.5 million children and adolescents in the United States smoke and that another 1 million children use smokeless tobacco. Accordingly, the FDA promulgated a proposed rule to reduce children's access to tobacco and limit its appeal to them. The proposed rule was published in August 1995, and the FDA invited public comment. The FDA received more than 700,000 pieces of mail on the proposed regulation, the most that any proposed regulation had ever received. After reviewing and analyzing the comments, the FDA published its final rule in August 1996 (21 CFR § 897).

The final FDA rule treated nicotine addiction as a pediatric disease because the use of tobacco products and the resulting nicotine addiction begin predominantly in children and adolescents. The FDA concluded that children do not fully understand the risks associated with consuming tobacco and that they are vulnerable to the sophisticated marketing techniques used by the tobacco industry.

Under the FDA rule, selling cigarettes or smokeless tobacco products to anyone under the age of eighteen is a federal violation. The rule also forbids the distribution of free samples of tobacco products and limits most retail sales to face-to-face situations by excluding most sales via vending machines and self-service displays. In addition, the rule limits tobacco advertising to black-and-white, text-only formats. Billboards and other forms of outdoor advertising are not allowed within a thousand feet of schools and public playgrounds. Sponsorship by tobacco companies of sporting and other events is limited to the corporate name only; the use of logos or mascots such as Joe Camel is forbidden. The rule also forbids the sale and distribution of nontobacco items that carry cigarette logos, such as T-shirts and hats.

The tobacco companies immediately challenged the FDA rule on several grounds, including whether the FDA has jurisdiction to regulate cigarettes as a "device" under the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act and whether the rule violates advertisers' freedom of speech. In at least one case, a federal court restricted the scope of the FDA's jurisdiction. In Coyne Beahm v. FDA, 966 F. Supp. 1374 (M.D. N.C. 1997), tobacco companies and advertising agencies challenged the FDA's regulation of tobacco products. In April 1997 the district court ruled on the plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment, holding that the FDA could regulate the sale, distribution, and use of smoking and chewing tobacco, but not the advertising or promotion of tobacco products. Both parties planned to appeal the ruling.

State Regulation of Tobacco

State and local governments may also regulate tobacco and tobacco products to the extent that their regulations are not preempted (already addressed) by federal laws. By 1997 every state had some form of regulation of chewing and smoking tobacco products. State governments typically restrict the use of tobacco by minors, require licenses for those who sell tobacco products, and restrict vending machine and individual cigarette sales.

In the Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Amendments Reorganization Act of 1992 (Pub. L. No. 102-321, 106 Stat. 323), Congress declared that it was the responsibi- lity of the states, with help from federal agencies, to restrict minors' access to tobacco products. By 1996 when the FDA called for a minimum age of eighteen for the use of tobacco products, all fifty states already had laws in place establishing eighteen as the minimum age for tobacco use.

The scope of state and local regulation is limited because it may not extend to areas already being regulated by the federal government. For example, because the FCLAA already regulates advertising based on smoking and health considerations, states and localities can restrict advertising only for other reasons, such as to protect citizens' aesthetic sensibilities, to control the location or types of cigarette displays, or to protect children from promotions blatantly aimed at them as consumers.

Whether the FCLAA preempts state regulation of promotions aimed at children is in dispute in the courts. In Penn Advertising v. City of Baltimore, 862 F. Supp. 1402 (D. Md. 1994), aff'd, 63 F.3d 1318 (4th Cir. 1995), cert. granted and judgment vacated, Penn Advertising v. Schmoke, ___U.S. ___, 116 S. Ct. 2575, 135 L. Ed. 2d 1090, aff'd on remand, 101 F.3d 322 (4th Cir. 1996), the court held that the FCLAA did not preempt a local ordinance that barred cigarette advertising in certain locations where children were likely to be found, such as near schools. But in Chiglo v. City of Preston, 909 F. Supp. 675 (D. Minn. 1995), the court overturned a city ordinance that restricted from certain areas cigarette advertising that contained logos, cartoon characters, or any distinctive brand advertising. The court in Chiglo held that the ordinance regulated the content of the advertising and hence was preempted by the FCLAA.

Local laws can also be preempted by state laws if the state law addresses the same issue. Well aware of this limitation, the tobacco industry began a campaign in the 1980s to encourage the adoption of weak, industry-friendly tobacco control legislation at the state level to preempt local governments from imposing stricter controls on the sale and use of tobacco.

Clean Indoor Air Acts

Armed with information showing the effects of ETS, the federal, state, and local governments began considering statutes to prohibit smoking in nonresidential buildings. Federal laws were passed to restrict smoking in transportation systems (49 C.F.R. § 1061.1 [1991]), in government buildings (41 C.F.R. § 101-20.105-3 [1991]), and aboard domestic airline flights (14 C.F.R. § 129.29). Federal regulation of private-sector workplaces has yet to take effect. Federal legislation was proposed, but the tobacco industry was able to muster great resistance to it. As of mid-1997, the proposed legislation was not yet finalized.

States and localities have responded to the concern over ETS by regulating smoking in various public areas. In 1997 more than forty states and the District of Columbia had some form of regulation in place. A minority of states have enacted indoor air quality acts, similar to the rules proposed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Some local governments have passed laws restricting smoking in places of entertainment, restaurants, and workplaces and on public transportation. Most of the state and local smoking regulations do not ban smoking in the workplace entirely, but limit smoking to designated areas or private offices.

Many private employers have voluntarily restricted smoking in the workplace. A 1985 survey found that more than 33 percent of employers were already regulating smoking in the workplace, and by 1991 that number had grown to 85 percent. By 1997 many private businesses had established policies that made it nearly impossible for employees to work and smoke. For example, some businesses would not allow anyone who had smoked within a certain time period to enter the building. Other businesses began charging smoking employees more for health insurance benefits. Indeed, businesses are motivated to regulate smoking in part because of the higher absenteeism and increased health care costs of smoking employees.

Tobacco Litigation

Tobacco litigation can be divided into three distinct time frames based on the types of claims pursued and the legal theories on which those claims were based. The first wave of tobacco litigation (1954-1973) involved cases based mainly on the theories of deceit, breach of express and implied warranties, and negligence. Cases filed during the second wave of tobacco litigation (1983-1992) were based on the legal theories of failure to warn and strict liability. Neither of the first two waves of litigation proved to be successful for the plaintiffs.

The first wave of litigation was characterized by the tobacco industry's adamant claims that smoking and chewing tobacco products were not harmful to consumers. Plaintiffs during that time did not have the extensive medical studies demonstrating serious health consequences that are available today to support their claims. Thus, plaintiffs had a difficult time establishing the essential element of proximate cause (causal connection to the injury) in their tort cases. By the time of the second wave of tobacco litigation, the connection between smoking and illness had been firmly established, but the tobacco industry was still able to argue with great success that smokers assumed the risks of smoking by freely deciding to smoke. The FCLAA's requirement that a warning label be placed on all cigarette packaging and advertising supported the tobacco companies' defenses of contributory negligence and assumption of the risk.

During the first two waves of litigation, the tobacco companies were also successful in using their size and financial strength to make litigation as difficult as possible for the plaintiffs. The tobacco industry filed and argued every conceivable motion, took countless depositions, and sent out extensive interrogatories. As a result, it was extremely burdensome and expensive for plaintiffs and their attorneys to pursue their cases.

The third wave of tobacco litigation began in the early 1990s and consists of class action suits brought by those injured by tobacco products and medical cost reimbursement suits brought by states and insurance companies. Legal scholars expect the third wave of litigation to produce more favorable results for plaintiffs and to regulate the sale and use of tobacco more effectively than conventional legislative and administrative regulation has been able to do. The strong-arm tactics used by tobacco companies to successfully fend off plaintiffs in the earlier litigation are not likely to work in the third wave because the class of plaintiffs and their respective attorneys have organized and are working together to their mutual benefit. Plaintiffs also now have new evidence obtained from internal tobacco company documents and former tobacco industry researchers that will significantly bolster their cases.

By the mid-1990s, the tobacco industry faced an enormous amount of exposure to liability. It has been estimated that cigarette-related illnesses and losses in productivity cost more than two dollars per pack of cigarettes in 1985 dollars. Further, studies have demonstrated a direct correlation between an increase in the cost of cigarettes and a reduction in consumption, especially by underage smokers. A reduction in smoking also clearly correlates with fewer adverse health effects and lower health care costs. For these reasons, in 1996 the Board of Trustees of the American Medical Association endorsed litigation against the tobacco companies. Legal experts have theorized that the long-term effects of plaintiff victories in the third wave of tobacco litigation could devastate and ultimately destroy the industry, much as plaintiff victories did in the recent asbestos litigation.

The claims in the third wave of tobacco litigation are based on some new legal theories. First, plaintiffs can demonstrate that tobacco companies knew that nicotine is pharmacologically active and highly addictive but hid that knowledge and, in fact, denied it under oath. Second, plaintiffs can show that tobacco companies manipulated nicotine levels in their products in an attempt to foster addiction in their consumers. Common legal theories used in the third wave of litigation include fraud, intentional and negligent misrepresentation, emotional distress, violation of consumer protection statutes, breach of express and implied warranties, strict liability, conspiracy, antitrust, negligent performance of a voluntary undertaking, unjust enrichment or indemnity, civil claims under the Federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act (18 U.S.C.A. § 1961 et seq. [1970]), and various criminal theories.

The third wave of litigation began with the certification of two class action suits (Broin v. Philip Morris, 641 So. 2d 888 [Fla. App. 3d Dist. 1994], review denied, Philip Morris Inc. v. Broin, 654 So. 2d 919 [Fla. 1995], and Castano v. American Tobacco, 84 F.3d 734 [5th Cir. 1996]). The class members in Broin were nonsmoking flight attendants who claimed that they suffered from various illnesses caused by their exposure to ETS from air travelers' cigarettes. Castano was based on plaintiffs' claims that the tobacco companies intentionally manipulated nicotine levels, even though the companies knew that nicotine was a hazardous and addictive substance. The Castano class consisted of all nicotine-dependent persons or their estates, heirs, family members, or "significant others" in the United States and its territories and possessions, who have bought and smoked cigarettes manufactured by the defendants. Because of the breadth of the class, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that the plaintiffs in Castano should not have been certified as a class; had the court allowed the case to proceed, it would likely have become the largest class action in U.S. history. After the decertification of the Castano class, plaintiffs' lawyers decided to pursue statewide class action suits in state courts around the nation.

Lawsuits since Castano have sought to eliminate the problem of certifying a large class. For example, Engle v. R. J. Reynolds, 672 So. 2d 39 [Ct. App. Fla. 3d Dist. 1996], review denied, 682 So. 2d 1100 (Fla. 1996), involves essentially the same claims as Castano, but the class is much smaller. The class certified in Engle consists of Florida citizens and residents, and their survivors, who have suffered, presently suffer, or have died from diseases and other medical conditions caused by their addiction to cigarettes. The Engle class action has been allowed to proceed. Several class action suits modeled on Engle have since been brought, and still more are anticipated.

The wave of state reimbursement suits was initiated in May 1994, when the state of Mississippi filed an unprecedented lawsuit on behalf of the state's taxpayers against the tobacco industry to recoup the state's share of Medicaid costs incurred as a result of tobacco-related illnesses (Moore v. American Tobacco, No. 94-1429 [Miss. Chan. Ct. 1994]). The state of Mississippi proceeded on legal theories of unjust enrichment and restitution, based on the fact that the state's taxpayers had been directly injured by the actions of the tobacco industry because they were forced to pay Medicaid costs associated with tobacco-related illnesses. By the middle of 1997, thirty-seven states had filed medical cost reimbursement suits based on legal theories similar to those pursued by Mississippi. In addition, some of the other states brought claims never before considered in this wave of litigation.

In 1994, when the state of Minnesota filed a medical cost reimbursement suit, the insurance company Blue Cross-Blue Shield of Minnesota joined as co-plaintiff, seeking reimbursement for its share of tobacco-related health care costs in Minnesota (Minnesota v. Philip Morris, No. 94-8565 [D.Minn. 1994]). When West Virginia filed its medical reimbursement lawsuit, it named as defendants not only tobacco companies, but also the Kimberly-Clarke Corporation, developer of the tobacco reconstitution process that enables tobacco companies to manipulate nicotine levels. In 1995 the state of Florida filed a lawsuit against the tobacco industry under Florida's Medicaid Third-Party Liability Act, effectively preventing tobacco industry defendants from prevailing under defenses of assumption of risk and contributory negligence. Texas filed suit in 1996 and brought claims based in part on the RICO Act and on theories of mail and wire fraud, antitrust violations, and public nuisance. The state of Washington additionally has sued the law firms that have represented the tobacco companies for many years, arguing that they unlawfully helped their clients keep certain documents confidential. Some of the states have asked that in addition to awarding monetary damages, the courts order the tobacco industry to publish all previous research on the link between smoking and health, establish funds for public education campaigns designed to discourage smoking, disclose the amounts of nicotine in their tobacco products, and order the dissolution of the tobacco industry's nonprofit organizations, the Council for Tobacco Research and the Tobacco Institute.

The most recent tobacco litigation has resulted in a historic settlement agreement. On March 15, 1996, the states of West Virginia, Florida, Mississippi, Massachusetts, and Louisiana entered into an agreement with Brooke Group and Liggett Group to settle those companies' portion of the states' medical cost reimbursement actions. This settlement was noteworthy because it represented the end of the tobacco industry's efforts to present a unified front and to refuse to willingly pay out monetary damages.

By March 1997 the Brooke Group/Liggett settlement agreement had been amended to include twenty-two states. In addition, in conjunction with the settlement agreement, Liggett Group, one of the five largest U.S. tobacco companies, publicly admitted that cigarettes and cigarette smoking cause lung cancer, heart disease, and emphysema. Liggett admitted that nicotine is addictive and that the tobacco industry actively and illegally markets to young people under the age of eighteen. As part of the amended settlement, Liggett agreed to cooperate fully with the twenty-two states by waiving attorney-client privilege and turning over privileged documents. Liggett also agreed to substantially comply with the new FDA regulations and to put warning labels on its cigarettes stating "Warning: Smoking Is Addictive." Liggett further promised to pay 25 percent of its pre-tax profits for the next twenty-five years to settle these actions.

Following several successful lawsuits, the Brooke Group/Liggett settlement agreement, and the FDA's promulgation of its rule regulating tobacco, discussion began regarding a possible global legislative settlement of all tobacco litigation. U.S. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott agreed to broker an agreement that would allow the tobacco industry to avoid FDA regulation and receive immunity from product liability suits for fifteen years. Talks regarding this proposed global settlement began in March 1997.

Preliminary reports indicate that the proposed settlement calls for the tobacco industry to pay billions of dollars in increasing amounts over fifteen years. The money would be administered by an administrator appointed by the president and would be paid out in grants to all fifty states. The plan also calls for the industry to drop the lawsuits it has brought against industry defectors and whistle-blowers in exchange for immunity from virtually all liability suits for the next fifteen years. By late 1997, the global settlement talks had not produced a final agreement but were proceeding. The parties reported that they were hopeful that an agreement would be reached in the near future.

Criminal Charges

In the 1990s federal criminal investigators began to prepare a case against the tobacco companies and their executives and scientists, four trade associations and industry-funded groups, a scientific consulting group, a public relations consulting firm, two companies that serve as suppliers to the tobacco companies, and a company-funded research group. The alleged crimes include federal perjury, mail fraud, wire fraud, false advertising, criminal conspiracy, criminal racketeering, and the deception of the public, federal agencies, and Congress. One criminal investigation is looking at possible perjury on the part of the industry's chief executive officers while testifying before Congress in April 1994 regarding the addictive qualities of nicotine. Another criminal probe is considering whether the industry misled its shareholders by misrepresenting industry knowledge of the physiological effects of tobacco products. Another investigation is focusing on allegations that an indoor air quality testing company accepted money from tobacco companies to distort test results. Still another probe is investigating the industry's Council for Tobacco Research, including the validity of its nonprofit status and whether it hid research results regarding smoking and health from the government. Finally, a probe is investigating allegations that tobacco companies smuggled cigarettes into Canada to avoid paying Canada's high cigarette taxes. The results of these criminal investigations remain to be seen.

See: tort law.

The dried prepared leaves of nicotiana tabacum, an annual plant widely cultivated which is the source of various alkaloids, the principal one being nicotine, a potent poison. Small animals ingesting cigarettes can be poisoned.

For the plant genus, see Nicotiana.

For the American electronic musician, see Tobacco (musician).

See also: Tobacco smoking

Part of the series on Tobacco

History

History of tobacco History in the United States

Biology

Nicotiana List of tobacco diseases Types of tobacco

Impact

Demographics Health effects Tobacco industry Tobacco advertising Tobacco politics

Production

Cultivation of tobacco Curing of tobacco Tobacco products

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Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as an organic pesticide, and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, it is used in some medicines.^[1] In consumption it most commonly appears in the forms of smoking, chewing, snuffing, or dipping tobacco, or snus. Tobacco has long been in use as an entheogen in the Americas. However, upon the arrival of Europeans in North America, it quickly became popularized as a trade item and as a recreational drug. This popularization led to the development of the southern economy of the United States until it gave way to cotton. Following the American Civil War, a change in demand and a change in labor force allowed for the development of the cigarette. This new product quickly led to the growth of tobacco companies, until the scientific controversy of the mid-1900s.

There are many species of tobacco, which are all encompassed by the plant genus Nicotiana. The word nicotiana (as well as nicotine) was named in honor of Jean Nicot, French ambassador to Portugal, who in 1559 sent it as a medicine to the court of Catherine de Medici.^[2]

Because of the addictive properties of nicotine, tolerance and dependence develop. Absorption quantity, frequency, and speed of tobacco consumption are believed to be directly related to biological strength of nicotine dependence, addiction, and tolerance.^[3][4] The usage of tobacco is an activity that is practiced by some 1.1 billion people, and up to 1/3 of the adult population.^[5] The World Health Organization reports it to be the leading preventable cause of death worldwide and estimates that it currently causes 5.4 million deaths per year.^[6] Rates of smoking have leveled off or declined in developed countries, however they continue to rise in developing countries.

Tobacco is cultivated similarly to other agricultural products. Seeds are sown in cold frames or hotbeds to prevent attacks from insects, and then transplanted into the fields. Tobacco is an annual crop, which is usually harvested mechanically or by hand. After harvest, tobacco is stored for curing, which allows for the slow oxidation and degradation of carotenoids. This allows for the agricultural product to take on properties that are usually attributed to the "smoothness" of the smoke. Following this, tobacco is packed into its various forms of consumption, which include smoking, chewing, sniffing, and so on.

Contents 1 Etymology 2 History 2.1 Early developments 2.2 Popularization 2.3 Contemporary 3 Biology 3.1 Nicotiana 3.2 Types 4 Impact 4.1 Social 4.2 Demographic 4.3 Health 4.4 Economic 4.5 Political 5 Production 5.1 Cultivation 5.2 Curing 5.3 Consumption 6 Gallery 7 See also 8 References 8.1 Notes 8.2 Bibliography 9 Further reading 10 External links

Etymology

The Spanish word "tabaco" is thought to have its origin in Arawakan language, particularly, in the Taino language of the Caribbean. In Taino, it was said to refer either to a roll of tobacco leaves (according to Bartolome de Las Casas, 1552), or to the tabago, a kind of Y-shaped pipe for sniffing tobacco smoke (according to Oviedo; with the leaves themselves being referred to as cohiba).^[7]

However, similar words in Spanish and Italian were commonly used from 1410 to define medicinal herbs, originating from the Arabic tabbaq, a word reportedly dating to the 9th century, as the name of various herbs.^[8]

History

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Main article: History of tobacco

See also: History of commercial tobacco in the United States

Early developments

Tobacco had already long been used in the Americas when European settlers arrived and introduced the practice to Europe, where it became popular. At high doses, tobacco can become hallucinogenic^{[citation needed]}; accordingly, Native Americans never used the drug recreationally. Instead, it was often consumed as an entheogen; among some tribes, this was done only by experienced shamans or medicine men.^{[citation needed]} Eastern North American tribes would carry large amounts of tobacco in pouches as a readily accepted trade item, and would often smoke it in pipes, either in defined ceremonies that were considered sacred, or to seal a bargain,^[9] and they would smoke it at such occasions in all stages of life, even in childhood.^[10] It is believed that tobacco is a gift from the Creator and that the exhaled tobacco smoke carries one's thoughts and prayers to heaven.^[11]

An Illustration from Frederick William Fairholt's Tobacco, its History and Association, 1859.

Popularization

Following the arrival of the Europeans, tobacco became increasingly popular as a trade item. It fostered the economy for the southern United States until it was replaced by cotton. Following the American civil war, a change in demand and a change in labor force allowed inventor James Bonsack to create a machine which automated cigarette production.

This increase in production allowed tremendous growth in the tobacco industry until the scientific revelations of the mid-1900s.

Contemporary

Following the scientific revelations of the mid-1900s, tobacco became condemned as a health hazard, and eventually became encompassed as a cause for cancer, as well as other respiratory and circulatory diseases. This led to the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) which settled the lawsuit in exchange for a combination of yearly payments to the states and voluntary restrictions on advertising and marketing of tobacco products.

In the 1970s, Brown & Williamson cross-bred a strain of tobacco to produce Y1. This strain of tobacco contained an unusually high amount of nicotine, nearly doubling its content from 3.2-3.5% to 6.5%. In the 1990s, this prompted the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to use this strain as evidence that tobacco companies were intentionally manipulating the nicotine content of cigarettes.

In 2003, in response to growth of tobacco use in developing countries, the World Health Organization (WHO)^[12] successfully rallied 168 countries to sign the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. The Convention is designed to push for effective legislation and its enforcement in all countries to reduce the harmful effects of tobacco. This led to the development of tobacco cessation products.

Biology

Nicotiana

Nicotine is the compound responsible for the addictive nature of Tobacco use.

Tobacco flower, leaves, and buds

Main article: Nicotiana

See also: List of tobacco diseases

There are many species of tobacco, which are encompassed by the genus of herbs Nicotiana. It is part of the nightshade family (Solanaceae) indigenous to North and South America, Australia, south west Africa and the South Pacific.

Many plants contain nicotine, a powerful neurotoxin, that is particularly harmful to insects. However, tobaccos contain a higher concentration of nicotine than most other plants. Unlike many other Solanaceae, they do not contain tropane alkaloids, which are often poisonous to humans and other animals.

Despite containing enough nicotine and other compounds such as germacrene and anabasine and other piperidine alkaloids (varying between species) to deter most herbivores,^[13] a number of such animals have evolved the ability to feed on Nicotiana species without being harmed. Nonetheless, tobacco is unpalatable to many species, and therefore some tobacco plants (chiefly tree tobacco, N. glauca) have become established as invasive weeds in some places.

Types

Main article: Types of tobacco

There are a number of types of tobacco including, but are not limited to:

• Aromatic fire-cured, it is cured by smoke from open fires. In the United States, it is grown in northern middle Tennessee, central Kentucky and in Virginia. Fire-cured tobacco grown in Kentucky and Tennessee are used in some chewing tobaccos, moist snuff, some cigarettes, and as a condiment in pipe tobacco blends. Another fire-cured tobacco is Latakia, which is produced from oriental varieties of N. tabacum. The leaves are cured and smoked over smoldering fires of local hardwoods and aromatic shrubs in Cyprus and Syria.
• Brightleaf tobacco, Brightleaf is commonly known as "Virginia tobacco", often regardless of the state in which they are planted. Prior to the American Civil War, most tobacco grown in the US was fire-cured dark-leaf. This type of tobacco was planted in fertile lowlands, used a robust variety of leaf, and was either fire cured or air cured. Most Canadian cigarettes are made from 100% pure Virginia tobacco.^[14]
• Burley tobacco, is an air-cured tobacco used primarily for cigarette production. In the U.S., burley tobacco plants are started from palletized seeds placed in polystyrene trays floated on a bed of fertilized water in March or April.
• Cavendish is more a process of curing and a method of cutting tobacco than a type. The processing and the cut are used to bring out the natural sweet taste in the tobacco. Cavendish can be produced from any tobacco type, but is usually one of, or a blend of Kentucky, Virginia, and burley, and is most commonly used for pipe tobacco and cigars.
• Criollo tobacco is a type of tobacco, primarily used in the making of cigars. It was, by most accounts, one of the original Cuban tobaccos that emerged around the time of Columbus.
• Dokham, is a tobacco originally grown in Iran, mixed with leaves, bark, and herbs for smoking in a midwakh.
• Turkish tobacco, is a sun-cured, highly aromatic, small-leafed variety (Nicotiana tabacum) that is grown in Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, and Macedonia. Originally grown in regions historically part of the Ottoman Empire, it is also known as "oriental". Many of the early brands of cigarettes were made mostly or entirely of Turkish tobacco; today, its main use is in blends of pipe and especially cigarette tobacco (a typical American cigarette is a blend of bright Virginia, burley and Turkish).
• Perique, a farmer called Pierre Chenet is credited with first turning this local tobacco into the Perique in 1824 through the technique of pressure-fermentation. Considered the truffle of pipe tobaccos, it is used as a component in many blended pipe tobaccos, but is too strong to be smoked pure. At one time, the freshly moist Perique was also chewed, but none is now sold for this purpose. It is typically blended with pure Virginia to lend spice, strength, and coolness to the blend.
• Shade tobacco, is cultivated in Connecticut and Massachusetts. Early Connecticut colonists acquired from the Native Americans the habit of smoking tobacco in pipes, and began cultivating the plant commercially, even though the Puritans referred to it as the "evil weed". The industry has weathered some major catastrophes, including a devastating hailstorm in 1929, and an epidemic of brown spot fungus in 2000, but is now in danger of disappearing altogether, given the value of the land to real estate speculators.
• White burley, in 1865, George Webb of Brown County, Ohio planted red burley seeds he had purchased, and found that a few of the seedlings had a whitish, sickly look. The air-cured leaf was found to be more mild than other types of tobacco.
• Wild tobacco, is native to the southwestern United States, Mexico, and parts of South America. Its botanical name is Nicotiana rustica.
• Y1 is a strain of tobacco cross-bred by Brown & Williamson in the 1970s to obtain an unusually high nicotine content. In the 1990s, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) used it as evidence that tobacco companies were intentionally manipulating the nicotine content of cigarettes.^[15]

Impact

Social

This section requires expansion with: information expanding the effects of tobacco on cultural practices.

Smoking in public was for a long time something reserved for men, and when done by women was sometimes associated with promiscuity.^{[citation needed]} In Japan during the Edo period, prostitutes and their clients would often approach one another under the guise of offering a smoke, and the same was true for 19th century Europe.^[16]

Following the American Civil War the usage of tobacco, primarily in cigarettes, became associated with masculinity and power, and is an iconic image associated with the stereotypical capitalist. Today, tobacco is often rejected; this has spawned quitting associations and anti-smoking campaigns. Bhutan is the only country in the world where tobacco sales are illegal.^[17]

Demographic

Main article: Prevalence of tobacco consumption

Research is limited mainly to tobacco smoking, which has been studied the more extensively than any other form of consumption. As of 2000, smoking is practiced by some 1.22 billion people, of which men are more likely to smoke than women^[18] (however the gender gap declines with age),^[19][20] poor more likely than rich, and people in developing countries or transitional economies are more likely than people in developed countries.^[21] As of 2004, the World Health Organization (WHO) reports that of the 58.8 million deaths to occur globally,^[22] 5.4 million are tobacco-attributed.^[23]

Health

Main article: Health effects of tobacco

See also: List of additives in cigarettes

Tobacco use leads most commonly to diseases affecting the heart and lungs, with smoking being a major risk factor for heart attacks, strokes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), emphysema, and cancer (particularly lung cancer, cancers of the larynx and mouth, and pancreatic cancer).

The World Health Organization estimates that tobacco caused 5.4 million deaths in 2004^[24] and 100 million deaths over the course of the 20th century.^[25] Similarly, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describes tobacco use as "the single most important preventable risk to human health in developed countries and an important cause of premature death worldwide."^[26]

Rates of smoking have leveled off or declined in the developed world. Smoking rates in the United States have dropped by half from 1965 to 2006, falling from 42% to 20.8% in adults.^[27] In the developing world, tobacco consumption is rising by 3.4% per year.^[28]

When the market for tobacco reduced in the West, the industry looked to India and China for 'emerging markets'. Dr. Sharad Vaidya, a cancer surgeon worked tirelessly to fight this, through research, advocacy and passion. He successfully raised awareness, introduced it in the curriculum of children and managed to establish legislation banning public smoking, stopping sports sponsorship, sale to minors (<21 years- an age suggested by Jayant Vaidya [[2]], starting in Goa.

Economic

This section requires expansion with: discussion of the impact on the poor, taxation, and so forth.

"Much of the disease burden and premature mortality attributable to tobacco use disproportionately affect the poor", and of the 1.22 billion smokers, 1 billion of them live in developing or transitional economies.^[21]

In Indonesia, the lowest income group spends 15% of its total expenditures on tobacco. In Egypt, more than 10% of households expediture in low-income homes is on tobacco. The poorest 20% of households in Mexico spend 11% of their income on tobacco.^[29]

Political

This section requires expansion with: information from the main article, main article needs to be expanded.

Main article: Tobacco politics

The tobacco lobby gives money to politicians to vote in favor of deregulating tobacco. It is estimated that the United States tobacco lobby spends an average of $106,415 each day legislature meets; however the industry lost its support when the U.S. National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) filed charges against the Tobacco Institute, a tobacco industry advocacy group.^[30] This resulted in the Master Settlement Agreement, which forced the organization to disband and place all records on a website.^[31]

Production

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Cultivation

Main article: Cultivation of tobacco

Tobacco plants growing in a field in Intercourse, Pennsylvania

Tobacco is cultivated similar to other agricultural products. Seeds were at first quickly scattered onto the soil. However, young plants came under increasing attack from flea beetles (Epitrix cucumeris or Epitrix pubescens), which caused destruction of half the tobacco crops in United States in 1876. By 1890 successful experiments were conducted that placed the plant in a frame covered by thin fabric. Today, tobacco is sown in cold frames or hotbeds, as their germination is activated by light.

In the United States, tobacco is often fertilized with the mineral apatite, which partially starves the plant of nitrogen, to produce a more desired flavor. Apatite, however, contains radium, lead 210, and polonium 210 — which are known radioactive carcinogens.

After the plants have reached relative maturity, they are transplanted into the fields, in which a relatively large hole is created in the tilled earth with a tobacco peg. Various mechanical tobacco planters were invented in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to automate the process: making the hole, fertilizing it, guiding the plant in — all in one motion.

Tobacco is cultivated annually, and can be harvested in several ways. In the oldest method, the entire plant is harvested at once by cutting off the stalk at the ground with a sickle. In the nineteenth century, bright tobacco began to be harvested by pulling individual leaves off the stalk as they ripened. The leaves ripen from the ground upwards, so a field of tobacco may go through several so-called "pullings," more commonly known as topping (topping always refers to the removal of the tobacco flower before the leaves are systematically removed and, eventually, entirely harvested. As the industrial revolution took hold, harvesting wagons used to transport leaves were equipped with man-powered stringers, an apparatus which used twine to attach leaves to a pole. In modern times, large fields are harvested mechanically or by hand, although topping the flower and in some cases the plucking of immature leaves is still done by hand.

Curing

Main article: Curing of tobacco

Sun-cured tobacco, Bastam, Iran.

Curing and subsequent aging allow for the slow oxidation and degradation of carotenoids in tobacco leaf. This produces certain compounds in the tobacco leaves, and gives a sweet hay, tea, rose oil, or fruity aromatic flavor that contributes to the "smoothness" of the smoke. Starch is converted to sugar, which glycates protein, and is oxidized into advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs), a caramelization process that also adds flavor. Inhalation of these AGEs in tobacco smoke contributes to atherosclerosis and cancer.^[32] Levels of AGE's is dependent on the curing method used.

Tobacco can be cured through several methods which include but are not limited to:

• Air cured tobacco is hung in well-ventilated barns and allowed to dry over a period of four to eight weeks. Air-cured tobacco is low in sugar, which gives the tobacco smoke a light, sweet flavor, and high in nicotine. Cigar and burley tobaccos are air cured.
• Fire cured tobacco is hung in large barns where fires of hardwoods are kept on continuous or intermittent low smoulder and takes between three days and ten weeks, depending on the process and the tobacco. . Fire curing produces a tobacco low in sugar and high in nicotine. Pipe tobacco, chewing tobacco, and snuff are fire cured.
• Flue cured tobacco was originally strung onto tobacco sticks, which were hung from tier-poles in curing barns (Aus: kilns, also traditionally called Oasts). These barns have flues which run from externally fed fire boxes, heat-curing the tobacco without exposing it to smoke, slowly raising the temperature over the course of the curing. The process will generally take about a week. This method produces cigarette tobacco that is high in sugar and has medium to high levels of nicotine.
• Sun-cured tobacco dries uncovered in the sun. This method is used in Turkey, Greece and other Mediterranean countries to produce oriental tobacco. Sun-cured tobacco is low in sugar and nicotine and is used in cigarettes.

Consumption

Further information: Tobacco products

Tobacco is consumed in many forms and through a number of different methods. Below are examples including, but not limited to, such forms and usage.

• Beedi are thin, often flavored, south Asian cigarettes made of tobacco wrapped in a tendu leaf, and secured with colored thread at one end.
• Chewing tobacco is one of the oldest ways of consuming tobacco leaves. It is consumed orally, in two forms: through sweetened strands, or in a shredded form. When consuming the long sweetened strands, the tobacco is lightly chewed and compacted into a ball. When consuming the shredded tobacco, small amounts are placed at the bottom lip, between the gum and the teeth, where it is gently compacted, thus it can oftentimes be called dipping tobacco. Both methods stimulate the saliva glands, which led to the development of the spittoon.
• Cigars are tightly rolled bundle of dried and fermented tobacco which is ignited so that its smoke may be drawn into the smoker's mouth.
• Cigarettes are a product consumed through the inhalation of smoke and manufactured from cured and finely cut tobacco leaves and reconstituted tobacco, often combined with other additives, then rolled or stuffed into a paper-wrapped cylinder.
• Creamy snuffs are tobacco paste, consisting of tobacco, clove oil, glycerin, spearmint, menthol, and camphor, and sold in a toothpaste tube. It is marketed mainly to women in India, and is known by the brand names Ipco (made by Asha Industries), Denobac, Tona, Ganesh. It is locally known as "mishri" in some parts of Maharashtra.
• Dipping tobaccos are a form of smokeless tobacco. Dip is occasionally referred to as "chew", and because of this, it is commonly confused with chewing tobacco, which encompasses a wider range of products. A small clump of dip is 'pinched' out of the tin and placed between the lower or upper lip and gums.
• Electronic cigarette is an alternative to tobacco smoking, although no tobacco is consumed. It is a battery-powered device that provides inhaled doses of nicotine by delivering a vaporized propylene glycol/nicotine solution.
• Gutka is a preparation of crushed betel nut, tobacco, and sweet or savory flavorings. It is manufactured in India and exported to a few other countries. A mild stimulant, it is sold across India in small, individual-size packets.
• Hookah is a single or multi-stemmed (often glass-based) water pipe for smoking. Originally from India, the hookah has gained immense popularity, especially in the Middle East. A hookah operates by water filtration and indirect heat. It can be used for smoking herbal fruits or cannabis.
• Kreteks are cigarettes made with a complex blend of tobacco, cloves and a flavoring "sauce". It was first introduced in the 1880s in Kudus, Java, to deliver the medicinal eugenol of cloves to the lungs.
• Roll-Your-Own, often called rollies or roll ups, are very popular, particularly in European countries. These are prepared from loose tobacco, cigarette papers and filters all bought separately. They are usually much cheaper to make.
• Pipe smoking typically consists of a small chamber (the bowl) for the combustion of the tobacco to be smoked and a thin stem (shank) that ends in a mouthpiece (the bit). Shredded pieces of tobacco are placed into the chamber and ignited.
• Snuff is a generic term for fine-ground smokeless tobacco products. Originally the term referred only to dry snuff, a fine tan dust popular mainly in the eighteenth century. Snuff powder originated in the UK town of Great Harwood, and was famously ground in the town's monument prior to local distribution and transport further up north to Scotland. There are two major varieties which include European (dry) and American (moist); although American snuff is often referred to as dipping tobacco.
• Snus is steam-cured moist powder tobacco product that is not fermented, and does not induce salivation. It is consumed by placing it in the mouth against the gums for an extended period of time. It is a form of snuff that is used in a manner similar to American dipping tobacco, but does not require regular spitting.
• Topical tobacco paste is sometimes recommended as a treatment for wasp, hornet, fire ant, scorpion, and bee stings.^[33] An amount equivalent to the contents of a cigarette is mashed in a cup with about a 0.5 to 1 teaspoon of water to make a paste that is then applied to the affected area.
• Tobacco water is a traditional organic insecticide used in domestic gardening. Tobacco dust can be used similarly. It is produced by boiling strong tobacco in water, or by steeping the tobacco in water for a longer period. When cooled, the mixture can be applied as a spray, or 'painted' on to the leaves of garden plants, where it will prove deadly to insects.

Gallery

Tobacco can also be pressed into plugs and sliced into flakes.   A historic kiln in Myrtleford, Victoria, Australia.   Basma tobacco leaves drying in the sun at Pomak village in Xanthi, Greece.   Broadleaf tobacco inspected in Chatham, Virginia, United States.   Tobacco field in northern Poland   Flowers of tobacco plant in northern Poland in September

See also

• List of tobacco related topics
• Plantation economy
• Usages of tobacco

References

Notes

1. ^ [1]
2. ^ colonia 13 509Heading: 1550–1575 Tobacco, Europe.
3. ^ "Tobacco Facts - Why is Tobacco So Addictive?". Tobaccofacts.org. http://www.tobaccofacts.org/tob_truth/soaddictive.html. Retrieved 2008-09-18. 
4. ^ "Philip Morris Information Sheet". Stanford.edu. http://www.stanford.edu/group/SICD/PhilipMorris/pmorris.html. Retrieved 2008-09-18. 
5. ^ Saner L. Gilman and Zhou Xun, "Introduction" in Smoke; p. 26
6. ^ (PDF) WHO Report on the global tobacco epidemic, 2008 (foreword and summary). World Health Organization. 2008. pp. 8. http://www.who.int/tobacco/mpower/mpower_report_forward_summary_2008.pdf. "Tobacco is the single most preventable cause of death in the world today.". 
7. ^ "World Association of International Studies, Stanford University". http://wais.stanford.edu/Cuba/cuba_ColumbusDiscoversCuba(110503).html. 
8. ^ "Online Etymological Dictionary". http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=tobacco. 
9. ^ eg. Heckewelder, History, Manners and Customs of the Indian Nations who Once Inhabited Pennsylvania, p. 149 ff.
10. ^ "They smoke with excessive eagerness ... men, women, girls and boys, all find their keenest pleasure in this way." - Dièreville describing the Mi'kmaq, c. 1699 in Port Royal.
11. ^ Tobacco: A Study of Its Consumption in the United States, Jack Jacob Gottsegen, 1940, p. 107.
12. ^ "WHO | WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC)". Who.int. http://www.who.int/fctc/en/index.html. Retrieved 2008-09-18. 
13. ^ Panter et al. (1990)
14. ^ Imperial Tobacco Canada - Our products
15. ^ "Inside the Tobacco Deal - interview with David Kessler". PBS. 2008. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/settlement/interviews/kessler.html. Retrieved 2008-06-11. 
16. ^ Timon Screech, "Tobacco in Edo Period Japan" in Smoke, pp. 92-99
17. ^ The First Nonsmoking Nation,Slate.com
18. ^ "Guindon & Boisclair" 2004, pp. 13-16.
19. ^ Women and the Tobacco Epidemic: Challenges for the 21st Century 2001, pp.5-6.
20. ^ Surgeon General's Report — Women and Smoking 2001, p.47.
21. ^ ^{a b} "WHO/WPRO-Tobacco". World Health Organization Regional Office for the Western Pacific. 2005. http://www.wpro.who.int/NR/exeres/978BE0FD-AE30-46C6-8F75-1F40AE7B57BC.htm. Retrieved 2009-01-01. 
22. ^ The Global Burden of Disease 2004 Update 2008, p.8.
23. ^ The Global Burden of Disease 2004 Update 2008, p.23.
24. ^ WHO global burden of disease report 2008
25. ^ WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic, 2008
26. ^ "Nicotine: A Powerful Addiction." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
27. ^ Cigarette Smoking Among Adults - United States, 2006
28. ^ WHO/WPRO-Smoking Statistics
29. ^ MPOWER p. 26
30. ^ "Tobacco Spends Over $100,000 Daily for Lobbying in DC". Action on Smoking and Health. http://www.no-smoking.org/oct01/10-23-01-1.html. 
31. ^ "Tobacco Institute". Sourcewatch.org. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tobacco_Institute. 
32. ^ Cerami C, Founds H, Nicholl I, Mitsuhashi T, Giordano D, Vanpatten S, Lee A, Al-Abed Y, Vlassara H, Bucala R, Cerami A (1997). "Tobacco smoke is a source of toxic reactive glycation products". Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences Of The United States Of America (Pnas) 94 (25): 13915–20. doi:10.1073/pnas.94.25.13915. PMID 9391127. 
33. ^ Beverly Sparks, "Stinging and Biting Pests of People" Extension Entomologist of the University of Georgia College of Agricultural & Environmental Sciences Cooperative Extension Service.

Bibliography

• "WHO REPORT on the global TOBACCO epidemic" (PDF). World Health Organization. 2008. http://www.who.int/entity/tobacco/mpower/mpower_report_full_2008.pdf. Retrieved 2008-01-01. 
• "The Global Burden of Disease 2004 Update" (PDF). World Health Organization. 2008. http://www.who.int/entity/healthinfo/global_burden_disease/GBD_report_2004update_full.pdf. Retrieved 2008-01-01. 
• G. Emmanuel Guindon, David Boisclair (2003). "Past, current and future trends in tobacco use" (PDF). Washington DC: The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank. http://www1.worldbank.org/tobacco/pdf/Guindon-Past,%20current-%20whole.pdf. Retrieved 2008-01-02. 
• The World Health Organization, and the Institute for Global Tobacco Control, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health (2001). "Women and the Tobacco Epidemic: Challenges for the 21st Century" (PDF). World Health Organization. http://www.who.int/tobacco/media/en/WomenMonograph.pdf. Retrieved 2009-01-02. 
• "Surgeon General's Report — Women and Smoking". Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2001. http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/sgr/sgr_2001/sgr_women_chapters.htm. Retrieved 2009-01-03. 
• Richard Peto, Alan D Lopez, Jillian Boreham, and Michael Thun (2006). "Mortality from Smoking in Developed Countries 1950-2000: indirect estimates from national vital statistics" (PDF). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. http://www.ctsu.ox.ac.uk/~tobacco/SMK_All_PAGES.pdf. Retrieved 2009-01-03. 
• Smoke: A Global History of SmokingReaktion Books2004ISBN 9781861892003 http://books.google.com/books?id=mM5bYb_uVcwC. Retrieved 2009-01-01 
• "Cancer Facts and Figures 2004: Basic Cancer Facts". American Cancer Society. http://tobaccodocuments.org/pm/2073777259-7269.html. Retrieved 2009-01-21. 
• Environmental and Heritable Factors in the Causation of Cancer — Analyses of Cohorts of Twins from Sweden, Denmark, and Finland343New England Journal of Medicine2000 http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/343/2/78. Retrieved 2009-01-21 
• Montesano, R., and Hall, J. (2001). "Environmental causes of human cancers". European Journal of Cancer. http://www.journals.elsevierhealth.com/periodicals/ejc/article/PIIS0959804901002660/abstract. Retrieved 2009-01-21. 
• Janet E. Ash, Maryadele J. O'Neil, Ann Smith, Joanne F. Kinneary (June 1997) [1996]. The Merck Index (12 ed.). Merk and Co.. ISBN 0412759403. 

Further reading

• Breen, T. H. (1985). Tobacco Culture. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-00596-6. Source on tobacco culture in eighteenth-century Virginia pp. 46–55
• Burns, Eric. The Smoke of the Gods: A Social History of Tobacco. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2007.
• W.K. Collins and S.N. Hawks. "Principles of Flue-Cured Tobacco Production" 1st Edition, 1993
• Fuller, R. Reese (Spring 2003). Perique, the Native Crop. Louisiana Life.
• Gately, Iain. Tobacco: A Cultural History of How an Exotic Plant Seduced Civilization. Grove Press, 2003. ISBN 0-8021-3960-4.
• Graves, John. "Tobacco that is not Smoked" in From a Limestone Ledge (the sections on snuff and chewing tobacco) ISBN 0-394-51238-3
• Grehan, James. “Smoking and “Early Modern” Sociability: The Great Tobacco Debate in the Ottoman Middle East (Seventeenth to Eighteenth Centuries)”. The American Historical Review, Vol. III, Issue 5. 2006. 22 March 2008 http://www.historycooperative.org.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/journals/ahr/111.5/grehan.html
• Killebrew, J. B. and Myrick, Herbert (1909). Tobacco Leaf: Its Culture and Cure, Marketing and Manufacture. Orange Judd Company. Source for flea beetle typology (p. 243)
• Murphey, Rhoads. Studies on Ottoman Society and Culture: 16th-18th Centuries. Burlington, VT: Ashgate: Variorum, 2007 ISBN 9780754659310 ISBN 0754659313
• Price, Jacob M. “Tobacco Use and Tobacco Taxation: A battle of Interests in Early Modern Europe”. Consuming Habits: Drugs in History and Anthropology. Jordan Goodman, et al. New York: Routledge, 1995 166-169 ISBN 0-415-09039-3
• Poche, L. Aristee (2002). Perique tobacco: Mystery and history.
• Tilley, Nannie May The Bright Tobacco Industry 1860–1929 ISBN 0-405-04728-2. Source on flea beetle prevention (pp. 39–43), and history of flue-cured tobacco
• Rivenson A., Hoffmann D., Propokczyk B. et al. Induction of lung and pancreas exocrine tumors in F344 rats by tobacco-specific and areca-derived N-nitrosamines. Cancer Res (48) 6912–6917, 1988. (link to abstract; free full text pdf available)
• Schoolcraft, Henry R. Historical and Statistical Information respecting the Indian Tribes of the United States (Philadelphia, 1851-57)
• Shechter, Relli. Smoking, Culture and Economy in the Middle East: The Egyptian Tobacco Market 1850–2000. New York: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., 2006 ISBN 1-84511-1370

External links

Find more about Tobacco on Wikipedia's sister projects:

Definitions from Wiktionary
Textbooks from Wikibooks
Quotations from Wikiquote
Source texts from Wikisource
Images and media from Commons
News stories from Wikinews
Learning resources from Wikiversity

• Growing Nicotiana species (Plot55.com)
• Natural Resources Conservation Service Plant Sheet - Wild tobacco
• Ottoman Back Archives and Research Centre
• Questions on European Union partial ban on some smokeless tobacco products (i.e. snus)
• Scientists Search for Healthy Uses for Tobacco
• Timeline of tobacco history
• The European tobacco growers website
• The Legacy Tobacco Documents Library
• UCSF Tobacco Industry Videos Collection
• CDC - Smoking and Tobacco Use Fact Sheet
• TobReg - WHO Study Group on Tobacco Product Regulation

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

Common misspelling(s) of tobacco

• tobbaco

Dansk (Danish)
n. - tobak

Nederlands (Dutch)
tabak(splant), tabak

Français (French)
n. - tabac

Deutsch (German)
n. - Tabak

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - καπνός, ταμπάκο

Italiano (Italian)
tabacco

Português (Portuguese)
n. - fumo (m), tabaco (m)

Русский (Russian)
табак

Español (Spanish)
n. - tabaco

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - tobak

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
烟草, 香烟

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 煙草, 香煙

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 담배, 흡연

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - たばこ, タバコ

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) سيكاير, تبغ‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮טבק, עלי טבק‬

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