Facts about Tobacco
Governments around the world, and the United Nations and other organizations, are trying to discourage the use of tobacco because of its ill effects on the health and prosperity of people and communities.
The high value of tobacco and the amount of labor required to grow it were important factors which led to the establishment of slavery in the colonies.
Tobacco leaves are sometimes soaked or boiled and the water sprayed on other plants as an organic insecticide.
Tobacco is the largest non-food crop by monetary value in the world today.
The dried and cured leaves of tobacco plants are smoked and consumed in other ways as a source of the alkaloid drug nicotine, a powerful neurotoxin that is particularly harmful to insects.
Smoking and chewing tobacco results in a much smaller dose; however, people have died as a result of mistaking wild tobacco for an edible herb and boiling and eating a large quantity (IPCS 2006).
In 2003, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations predicted that tobacco use would continue to expand at least through 2010 (FAO 2003).
The use of flue-cured or fire-cured smokeless tobacco in lieu of smoked tobacco reduces the risk of respiratory cancers but still carries significant risk of oral cancer.
Conflicts over the taxation and regulation of the trade of tobacco were sources of conflict between the colonies and England, which contributed to the onset of the American Revolution in 1776 (Borio 2006).
The word tobacco may refer either to the various species of broad-leafed plants comprising the genus Nicotiana of the nightshade family, or to the dried leaves of these plants.
The tobacco plant is an annual (or sometimes perennial) herb growing about 1-2 meters (3-7 feet) tall.
Tobacco use has had a tremendous impact on history and society all over the world, especially in the last five hundred years.
Lickint also argued that tobacco use was the best way to explain the fact that lung cancer struck men four or five times more often than women (since women smoked much less) (Borio 2006).
Starting in the mid 1600s, the English colonies in North America became one of the world's most important tobacco growing regions.
Tobacco was first used by Native Americans and began to be cultivated about eight thousand years ago in South America.
Tobacco is a member of the nightshade family, Solanaceae, along with potatoes (Solanum tuberosum), tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum), mandrakes (Mandragora officinarum), and deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna).
Tobacco leaves were given to Christopher Columbus by the people of the West Indies in 1492.
In 1929 Fritz Lickint of Dresden, Germany published the first formal statistical evidence of a lung cancer–tobacco link, based on a study showing that lung cancer sufferers were likely to be smokers.
Significantly shorter life expectancies have been associated with tobacco smoking.
Among these, the most important economically to humans is cultivated tobacco, Nicotiana tabacum.
Tobacco advocates, such as those working in the tobacco industry, point out the benefits of tobacco growing to small farmers and urge governments not to take drastic action to curb its production (ITGA 2006).
China is both the largest grower (producing 2.51 million metric tons in 2005) and the largest consumer of tobacco today.
Ramon Pane, a Catholic monk who came on Columbus's second voyage to the New World in 1493, wrote an account of tobacco use and is credited with introducing it to Europe.
Over the next one hundred years, tobacco cultivation and use spread around the world; mainly by Spanish, Portuguese, and English sailors (Borio 2006).
The roots of these volcanic mountains and the action of Precambrian seas formed the Iron Range of northern Minnesota.
One of the most important early uses of tobacco was as a hallucinogen in shamanistic rituals (Borio 2006).
Tobacco plants flower in summer producing white, purple, pink, or red flowers which are most often pollinated by moths.
Several tobacco species were used including "Aztec tobacco" (Nicotiana rustica).
From this time, Americans became much more aware of the dangers of tobacco and its use in the United States began to decline.
Tobacco is the largest non-food crop by monetary value in the world today.
Tobacco smoke contains more than 7,000 chemicals. ... Smoking cigarettes is the number-one risk factor for lung cancer. But, smoking can affect your entire body, and is known to cause cancer in the: Lungs.
Tobacco smoking is harmful to health. Tobacco smoke contains more than 7000 chemical compounds. Many of these agents are toxic, and more than 69 - including polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and tobacco-specific nitrosamines - cause cancer.Dec 12, 2017
Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable illness and death in the United States. It causes many different cancers as well as chronic lung diseases such as emphysema and bronchitis, heart disease, pregnancy-related problems, and many other serious health problems.