Shredded tobacco leaf for pipe smoking

Tobacco can also be pressed into plugs and sliced into flakes

Tobacco is an agricultural product, recognized as an addictive drug, processed from the fresh leaves of plants in the 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.^[1] It is most commonly smoked in the form of cigarettes or cigars. Tobacco has been growing on both American and African continents since about 6000 BC and was used by native cultures by around 3000 BC. Employed as an anthelmintic^[2], it has been smoked, in one form or another, since about 3000 BC. Tobacco has a long history of ceremonial use in Native American culture. It has played an important role in the political, economic, and cultural history of the United States of America.

Dried, cured, and unprocessed tobacco is commercially available all over the world. Smoke from burning, or otherwise heated, tobacco can be inhaled in the forms of cigarettes, cigars, stem pipes, bongs, and hookahs. Tobacco can also be chewed, dipped (placed between the cheek and gum), or sniffed into the nose as finely powdered snuff. Many countries set minimum legal smoking ages, regulating the purchase and use of tobacco products. Bhutan is the only country in the world where tobacco sales are illegal.^[3] According to the World Health Organization, tobacco smoke is the second largest cause of death worldwide, and is reported to have been responsible for the deaths of 100 million people in the 20th century.^[4]

All methods of tobacco consumption result in varying quantities of nicotine being absorbed into the user's bloodstream. Over time, 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. ^{[5] [6]}.

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

Early developments

Tobacco had already long been used in the Americas by the time European settlers arrived and introduced the practice to Europe, where it became popular. At high doses, tobacco can become hallucinogenic ; accordingly, Native Americans did not always use the drug recreationally. Instead, it was often consumed as an entheogen; among some tribes, this was done only by experienced shamans or medicine men. 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 was believed that tobacco was a gift from the Creator and that the exhaled tobacco smoke was capable of carrying one's thoughts and prayers to heaven^[11].

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. However following the American civil war, a change in demand and a change in labor force allowed the inventor James Bonsack to create a machine which automated the production of cigarettes.

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, which eventually came to encompass as a cause for cancer, and 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.

As the industry's downward tumble continued, in the 1990s Brown & Williamsons cross-bred a strain a 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%. This prompted 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 tobaccos growth 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

Tobacco flower, leaves, and buds

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. In addition, unlike many other Solanaceae they do not contain tropane alkaloids, which are often poisonous to humans and other animals.

Health effects

Smoking any tobacco product, %, Males^[13]

Smoking any tobacco product, %, Females^[13]

The effects of tobacco on health are significant, depending on the way the tobacco is used (smoked, snuffed or chewed) and the amount. Major health effects of smoking, the most common use of tobacco, include an increased risk in lung cancer and cardiovascular disease. The World Health Organization estimated in 2002^[14] that in developed countries, 26% of male deaths and 9% of female deaths were attributable to smoking. 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."^[15] Rates of smoking have leveled off or declined in the developed world they continue to rise in developing countries. Smoking rates in the United States have dropped by half from 1965 to 2006 falling from 42% to 20.8% in adults.^[16] In the developing world, tobacco consumption is rising by 3.4% per year.^[17]

Usages

Tobacco has been used in may forms in addition to being a controlled substance. It has been used in traditional medicines, and as pesticides in agriculture.

Processing

Cultivation

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. 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.

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

Tobacco is cultivated annual, 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 onto a poll. In modern times large fields are harvested by a single piece of farm equipment, although topping the flower and in some cases the plucking of immature leaves is still done by hand.

Curing

Sun-cured tobacco, Bastam, Iran.

Historic barn for air-curing of tobacco, West Virginia, USA.

Curing and subsequent aging allows for the slow oxidation and degradation of carotenoids in tobacco leaf. This produces certain compounds in the tobacco leaves very similar and give a sweet hay, tea, rose oil, or fruity aromatic flavor that contribute 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.^[18]. 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.

Types

Shade grown tobacco field in East Windsor, Connecticut

There are a number of types of tobacco include 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 and 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 which state 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.^[19]
• 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 of it. The processing and the cut are used to bring out the natural sweet taste in the tobacco. Cavendish can be produced out of 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 of Iranian origin mixed with leaves, bark, and herbs for smoking in a midwakh.
• Oriental tobacco, is a sun-cured, highly aromatic, small-leafed variety (Nicotiana tabacum) that is grown in Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, and F.Y.R.O.M. Oriental tobacco is frequently referred to as "Turkish tobacco", as these regions were all historically part of the Ottoman Empire. Many of the early brands of cigarettes were made mostly or entirely of Oriental 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 Oriental).
• 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 that was cross-bred by Brown & Williamson to obtain an unusually high nicotine content. It became controversial in the 1990s when the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) used it as evidence that tobacco companies were intentionally manipulating the nicotine content of cigarettes.^[20]

Products

Tobacco can be processed into a number of products which include but are not limited to:

• Chewing tobacco, Chewing is one of the oldest ways of consuming tobacco leaves. It is consumed orally, but is rarely consumed though actual chewing. Small amounts are placed at the bottom lip, between the gum and the teeth, where it is gently compacted, thus it can often times be encompass Dipping tobacco. This stimulates the the salve glands, which led to the development of the spittoon.
• Creamy snuff, is a 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 tobacco, is 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.
• Gutka, (also spelled gutkha, guttkha, guthka) 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.
• 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 a moist powder tobacco product that is consumed by placing it under the upper lip for extended periods of time. It is a form of snuff that is used in a manner similar to American dipping tobacco, but typically does not result in the need for spitting.
• Topical tobacco paste is sometimes recommended as a treatment for wasp, hornet, fire ant, scorpion, and bee stings.^[21] 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.

Culture impact

Due to its long existence, tobacco has fostered many cultural items including: the usage of peace pipes, advertisements, movies, and movements in rejecting its usage.

See also

References

Notes

Bibliography

• 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

Further reading

External links

• North American Association of Cigarette and Tobacco Smokers
• The European tobacco growers website
• Timeline of tobacco history
• Growing Nicotiana species (Plot55.com)
• Tobacco Smoke and Involuntary Smoking, Summary of Data Reported and Evaluation 2004 by the IARC.
• BBC report on questions re European Union partial ban on some smokeless tobacco products (''i.e.'' snus)
• Scientists Search for Healthy Uses for Tobacco
• Science behind tobacco - Curing
• UCSF Tobacco Industry Videos Collection
• The Legacy Tobacco Documents Library
• Ottoman Back Archives and Research Centre
• Natural Resources Conservation Service Plant Sheet - Wild tobacco

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