Tobacco

Tobacco is the product prepared from the leaves of the tobacco plant by curing. The Tobacco plant
is a plant within the genus Nicotiana of the Solanaceae (nightshade) family. While there are more
than 70 species of tobacco, the chief commercial crop is N. tabacum. The more potent species N.
rustica is also widely used around the world.
Tobacco contains the alkaloid nicotine, a stimulant. Dried tobacco leaves are
mainly smoked in cigarettes, cigars,pipe tobacco and flavored shisha tobacco. They are also
consumed as snuff, chewing tobacco and dipping tobacco.
Tobacco use is a risk factor for many diseases, especially those affecting the heart, liver and lungs,
and several cancers. In 2008, the World Health Organization (WHO) named tobacco as the world's
single greatest cause of preventable death.[1]

History[edit]
Main article: History of tobacco
See also: History of commercial tobacco in the United States
William Michael Harnett (American, 1848-1892). Still Life with Three Castles Tobacco, 1880. Brooklyn Museum

Traditional use[edit]

The earliest depiction of a European man smoking, from Tabacco byAnthony Chute, 1595.

Tobacco had already long been used in the Americas, with some cultivation sites in Mexico dating
back to 14001000 B.C.[4]Many Native American tribes traditionally grew and used tobacco as
an entheogen. Eastern North American tribes carried tobacco in pouches as a readily accepted trade

item, and often smoked it in peace pipes, either in defined sacred ceremonies, or to seal a bargain.
[5]

They smoked it at such occasions in all stages of life, even in childhood. [6] They believed that

tobacco is a gift from the Creator, and that the exhaled tobacco smoke carries one's thoughts and
prayers to the Creator.[7][8]

Popularization[edit]

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

Following the arrival of the Europeans, tobacco became increasingly popular as a trade
item. Hernndez de Boncalo, Spanish chronicler of the Indies, was the first European to bring
tobacco seeds to the old continent in 1559 following orders of king Philip II of Spain. These seeds
were planted in the outskirts of Toledo, more specifically in an area known as "Los Cigarrales"
named after the continuous plagues of cicadas ("cigarras" in Spanish). Before the development of
lighter Virginia and White Burley strains of tobacco, the smoke was too harsh to be inhaled. Small
quantities were smoked at a time, using a pipe like the midwakh or kiseru or smoking newly invented
waterpipes such as the bong or the hookah (see thuc lo for a modern continuance of this
practice).
Tobacco smoking and chewing and stuffing became a major industry in Europe and its colonies by
1700.[9][10]
Tobacco has been a major cash crop in Cuba and in other parts of the Caribbean since the
eighteenth century. Cuban cigars are world-famous.[11]
In the late nineteenth century, cigarettes became popular. James Bonsack created a machine that
automated cigarette production. This increase in production allowed tremendous growth in
the tobacco industry until the health revelations of the late-20th century.[12] [13]

Contemporary[edit]
See also: Tobacco control
See also: Tobacco in the United States
Following the scientific revelations of the mid-20th century, tobacco became condemned as a health
hazard, and eventually became encompassed as a cause for cancer, as well as other respiratory

and circulatory diseases. In the United States, 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)[14] 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[edit]
Nicotiana[edit]
Main article: Nicotiana
See also: List of tobacco diseases

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

Tobacco flower, leaves, and buds

There are many species of tobacco in 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 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,[15] a number of such
animals have evolved the ability to feed onNicotiana species without being harmed. Nonetheless,
tobacco is unpalatable to many species, and accordingly some tobacco plants (chiefly N. glauca)
have become established as invasive weeds in some places.

Types[edit]
Main article: Types of tobacco
There are a number of types of tobacco including, but are not limited to:

Aromatic fire-cured 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 where 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.[16]

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 ofKentucky, 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.

Dokha, 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 Connecticut shade 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 increase in the value of land.

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