The History of Tobacco Use: an Addicting Drug and the Change over the Centuries

The History of Tobacco Use: An Addicting Drug and the Change over the Centuries

Sean Calhoun

JADM-310 Drugs & Society

Week 7 Course Project

Professor: Negersmith

DeVry University

8/23/12

Table of Contents
3……………………………………………………………Introduction
3-8…………………………………………….. ………………………History of Tobacco
8-9………………………………………………………….Cost of Tobacco
10-11………………………………………………………………….Effects of Tobacco
12-13………………………………………………….Tobacco’s Effect on the Environment
13-14…………………………………………………………….Conclusion
15-16………………………………………………………………………Works Cited

Introduction
Since the beginning of civilization people have been using tobacco. Overtime the evolution of tobacco has evolved around us as well as with us; also it has become very prevalent in part of many cultures. For hundreds of years tobacco has been high in crop profits. This drug has been used all throughout history and up still now, which today it has become a common way of human life. Today Tobacco is a billion dollar industry. Tobacco, has been used for many cases in civilization most of them being for religious uses during the middle ages of our history.
Tobacco’s history is long due to the fact of its popularization in the Americas. Tobacco first became increasingly popular with the first arrivals of the Europeans by whom it was heavily traded to. In further times following the industrial revolution, many cigarettes where popularized, which caused yet another unparalleled increase in growth. This remained until the scientific research (revelations) in the mid-1990s. Before the scientific revelations tobacco was even referred to by doctors who felt tobacco eased stress and depression. In early uses to its modern product the tobacco plant has a long, unique and interesting history.
History of Tobacco Almost all Indian tribes of central and northern America were among some of the first users of the tobacco plant. As early as 600 A.D. Indians smoked tobacco. Many of these tribes tobacco was mainly smoked during religious rituals using a pipe and was not used as a regular basis as oppose today (Chastain, 2008). In addition to tobacco Indians also smoked tobacco in a pipe for medicinal purposes. When the early explorers started to land in America it was noted that tobacco was an extremely valuable crop to the natives of the country, because of its purpose. Many explorers were given tobacco as a gift from the Native Americans, one of those explorers being Christopher Columbus.
These explorers then, brought back the tobacco seeds to Europe with them then becoming popular until the early 1600’s, when mainly everyone had access to them. When these tobacco products became popular, the early American colonists then began to cultivate their first cash crop. Eventually this became the colonist’s largest export. Tobacco was also the greatest source of income for the Jamestown, Virginia settlers (Chastain, 2008). Tobacco is one of the most widely used and addictive substance in the world. The tobacco plant is the most important crop grown by American farmers since the 1600’s. (Merchant, 2002)
During the 1600’s tobacco use reached most of Europe, Asian, Africa and North America. Even though paper cigarettes were developed moderately around the same time as cigars, the first push of factory production was in 1881 with the issuance of a patent for the rolling of a cigarette machine that produced 120,000 units daily. Since 1617 to 1793 tobacco was the most valuable and important export from English American mainland colonies and the United States, until about the 1960’s when the Unites States didn’t only grow but manufactured and exported the drug than any other country (Chastain, 2008). Evidence of deadly tobacco effects during consumption since 1964, have led to sharp and steep decline in support and sales for producers and manufactures of tobacco, in spite of the large contribution to the agricultural, fiscal, manufacturing, and exporting sectors of the United States economy.
In 1617 John Rolfe’s experiment with Spanish tobacco provided English settlement in Virginia with an excellent export process of high value proportion to the cost of the transportation of tobacco across the Atlantic. This resulted in a huge economic growth of tobacco by colonial Chesapeake (Merchant, 2002). Merchants of English settlements supplied colonists with the manufactured goods and bound labor and took profits primarily from the return of cargoes of tobacco. During the last quarter of the seventeenth century the bond servants grew tobacco that came from only British Isle, but later, the laborers were principally black slaves from the West Indies and Africa. The laborers, had settled on plantations or quarters, that swelled the population of the Chesapeake colonies from a couple of hundred in 1618 to about thirty-five thousand by 1675 and over half a million by 1776 (Merchant, 2002).
The quality of the drug tobacco shipped to Great Britain which rose from twenty thousand pounds in 1617 to well over forty million pounds in 1727 and even the economy for the agriculture became diversified after 1700. Many colonists continued to produce large amounts of tobacco crops. The tobacco inspection systems were created by Virginia in 1730 and by Maryland in 1747 which improved the quality of Chesapeake tobacco exported to Britain and from Britain to the continent. The biggest crops averaged 100 million pounds in the early 1770’s and low price of Chesapeake tobacco had overwhelmed its European competitors (Merchant, 2002). At the arrival of 1775, not only was England but much of Europe depended on the need for Chesapeake tobacco.
Revenue derived from spelling tobacco aided in the funding of the revolutionary war. Tobacco was the cash crop for our very first president George Washington. Tobacco that was chewed or hand rolled for smoking, known as cigarettes became massively popular in the 1800’s. At the time daily use of tobacco was not a common image (Stuart, 2000). The fast demand for tobacco is what led to the use of African slaves in America.
In the late 1800’s the first commercial advertising cigarettes was made originally and sold for the civil war soldiers. During the Civil War there was a boost in the consumption of tobacco in the portable form of mainly cigars and the new cigarettes (Stuart, 2000). After a decade of Appomattox, American production of tobacco production had doubled once again which was led by increased demand for smoking tobacco and cigarettes. At this time they were still made by hand.
At the end of slavery, small independent farmers, mostly white, and tenant farmers, both white and black, grew most tobacco in the United States, while their families assisted in the cultivation process. New companies evolved that manufactured the smoking of tobacco and cigarettes followed the culture of bright leaf, flue-cured tobacco by Durham and Winston-Salem of North Carolina. Over the next century, James Buchanan Duke and R.J. Reynolds used an aggressive type of advertising, the best machinery available and bid-business techniques for eliminating their competition to create multimillion-dollar corporations (Stuart, 2000). This was among the most profitable and largest companies in the United States. However, consumption of chewing tobacco sharply fell after 1890.

(Martin, 2012)
In the 1920’s the annual per capita of the consumption of cigarettes in the United States approached about one thousand, and advertisers began to target women, thus the arrival of the cigarette age arrived. In 1881 a cigarette making machine was created and the first cigarette factory was opened. The first commercial promoting cigarette’s was the brand named Duke and Durham. The initial sales of the first cigarette commercial was about 10 million cigarettes the first year the factory was opened, but in five years that was surpassed by one billion cigarettes (Martin, 2012).
The company was owned by the maker of the first cigarette commercial called Buck Duke. Eventually the first company was created called The American Tobacco Company. It was called the Marlboro brand. In the mid 1900’s cigarette sales reached 300 billion annually (Martin, 2012). The company Marlboro since then has become one of the biggest cigarette companies in the world. In the beginning of the 20th century to the later part there has been commercials promoting cigarette use. Doctor’s and even cartoons were used to promote cigarettes. It was until the late 1980’s is when cigarette’s commercials started to dwindle.
Below are 1950’s cigarette commercials promoting their use of cigarettes and why one should smoke them? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCMzjJjuxQI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAExoSozc2c

(Qatar News Agency, 2011)
Cost of Tobacco
In the tobacco industry they have been combating consumer health awareness, and governmental restrictions and taxes. Anti-smoking lobbying didn’t help because the increase profitability of smoking has been increasing since the introduction to global market. These estimates place the industry revenue at a $465BN and gross profit at $280.3BN for the year of 2012. The tobacco industry employs over 600 thousand with total wages approximately $11,807.8MM (Stuart, 2000). In the last five years, tobacco sales have dominated and 2010 marks continued success. The Worldwide industry revenue, gross product and trading are up 1.9%, 1.6% and 2.5% from 2009. Increase of sales has boosted cigarettes sales in the United States. Some stagnation occurred with the number of firms and enterprises with the overall employment down to 4.3%. Tobacco today makes about 600 billion dollars annually worldwide (Martin, 2012).
During the years 1929 through 1989 the government, science, and technology transformed tobacco culture into agribusiness by legislation, invention and mechanization. From 1934 through 1981 tobacco farmers prospered from government price support programs, unfortunately in 1969 a successful tobacco harvesting machine for bright leaf tobacco spelled an end of tobacco farming as a labor-intensive, family farm harvesting operation (Congressional Digest, 2007). Until the early 1980’s almost fifty percent of flue-cured tobacco was harvested by machines. The Burley tobacco grown in Kentucky and Tennessee enjoyed fewer economies of scale and mechanization, however high leaf yields kept it a competitive market for cigarette blending (Congressional Digest, 2007).
Man farmers were put out of business due to the big development of machines that eventually replaced the farmers. The average cost of a pack of cigarettes cost around $5.00 including taxes. Someone who smokes a pack-a-day burns roughly about $31.50 per week, or $1,638 per year. If a smoker is a three pack-a-day smoker, then they spend about 50,000 a year on cigarettes.

Effects of Tobacco
In early 1960’s America, warnings about the dangers of smoking cigarettes were released by the United States surgeon general. Not long after that these warnings were released congress passed the Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act (Congressional Digest, 2007). This law made it that all cigarettes had to carry a warning label about the dangers of cigarette smoking. Later another law was passed by the congress that forced congress to label there are package with a more disparaging label. For the best interest in our society the evolution of these laws has continued today.
In Australia tobacco smoking is the largest cause of preventable death and disease, contributing to the death of around 15,000 or more people each year. Statistics show that more people die from smoking related diseases than from illicit drugs, alcohol and road accidents combined (Kowalski, 2008). The effects of smoking are both inside and out of the body; the effects are immediate and others can occur decades later in a life of a smoker. Smoking that is breathing in tobacco smoke caused by someone else’s smoking is called Passive smoking.
Long periods of exposure to passive smoking can cause many people the same health problems as someone who is actively smoking. With the combination of alcohol consumption and smoking may increase the likelihood of a tobacco-caused cancer especially those in the mouth, esophagus and larynx (Kowalski, 2008). Mixing cannabis with tobacco isn’t going to cut down the harmful effects of tobacco, due to the fact that cannabis can cause the same health problems as tobacco, in fact it can increase the risk of many cancers. Mixing the two drugs increases the addictiveness of the nicotine. Women who are taking contraceptives and are over 30 are more likely to die from a heart attack or stroke (Kowalski, 2008). Many prescription medications are absorbed into a smoker’s body more quickly than someone who doesn’t smoke.

(Saad, 2003)
Smokers who quit can face some of the biggest challenges, but they can also have the most rewarding and life changing results (Qatar News Agency, 2011). The main majorities of smoker’s want to quit and may have tries at least once, but may have been unsuccessful at times (Saad, 2003). Many people have a few or more tries before they successfully quit. People who believe that low yield cigarettes are healthier are incorrect. They are not less addictive or harmful for one’s health.
Most or all smokers compensate for the lower nicotine levels of these cigarettes by smoking more or inhaling deeper. The cigarettes just explained are the thought to be the cause for the increase in a type of cancer founder deeper in the lungs (Saad, 2003). There is no such thing as a safe level of smoking. Every cigarette you put in your mouth and inhale is doing damage to your body.

Tobacco’s Effect on the Environment
Studies have shown that smoking takes years off of your life and add dollars to the cost of health care. However, nonsmoker also cost society money by living longer, so either way it is a lose-lose situation for insurance companies who have to pay for your health. Every single smoker out there think they are only damaging their health, their ignorance about the fact that their smoking is indirectly affecting others health as well (Qatar News Agency, 2011). Many people don’t know this, but smokers are the direct contribution to the environment pollution.
It has been proven that smoking causes air pollution and to some extent it also pollutes the ground. Approximately 4,000 chemicals are present in one cigarette, which are exhaled out and released into the atmosphere. The North American population is 30% of smokers and the percentage of the smoking population in developing countries is a lot higher (Saad, 2003). This shows that an enormous amount of pollution is being released in the atmosphere daily.
Pollution that is caused because of smoking is not confined only to the air body, or ground, but to an extent where it is responsible for polluting water along with land. All day everyday millions of cigarette butts are left on the ground (Braden, 2011). A maximum of the cigarette butts end up in lakes and rivers. The fishes and other water animals accidentally eat these butts resulting in their deaths. The butts left on the ground will take 25-26 years to decompose.
The additives and chemicals then seep into the soil polluting the soil as well as plants, resulting in the plants death. Due to cigarettes, when it is a dry season cigarette butts can also cause major fires, which is obvious that is harmful to the environment. A major impact on the environment is mainly due to the production of cigarettes (Braden, 2011). I think that the land their using to grow tobacco could be used to produce food for third world countries, something good can come out of that than destroying the environment from tobacco.
The tobacco plant is highly susceptible to pests and disease so to maintain their proper growth and health many various chemicals are being sprayed onto them which is destroying the environment. Production and packaging of the cigarette requires a lot of trees. Cigarette-manufacturing units require 4 miles of paper for rolling and packaging of the cigarettes. To produce 300 cigarettes one tree is being wasted for the process (Braden, 2011). Water and Energy is also being wasted for the cigarettes production as well as the chemical waste from the manufacturing unit is being dumped into the soil (Farrell, 2009).
It is clear that cigarettes are in total adding a huge strain on the body of the environment (Farrell, 2009). The use of more advance technology in the tobacco industry can help in decreasing the strain from the environment, only if the tobacco industry is willing to spend the extra money, which is very unlikely. Using this type of technology would cut the billions of dollars in profit the industry is already obtaining (Farrell, 2009). The easiest and best way to control the environment from destruction is to stop buying this harmful product. Even-though it is tough to kick the habit of smoking it will directly be beneficial to your health and environment in the long run.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I’d say that smoking is not only bad for your health, but for the environment around us, also. With air pollution on the rise and the effects of global warming with the seen climate change the future looks quite gloomy. Smoking would be found to be difficult for smokers to quit. Many people prepare for months for their effort to get rid of the habit, making painstaking plans to eliminate their dependence on nicotine. Although, making an effort to give up smoking all of a sudden is far more likely to result in unsatisfactory results. For the future of our environment and the costs of health care it is important that smoking individuals prepare themselves to quit smoking. It is imperative that people who smoke should find support for their endeavor to quit smoking. Since nicotine is number #1 on the list of most addictive drugs, once someone starts it is very difficult to quit. The government needs to start regulating cigarettes and how they are being used; perhaps raising taxes could make an incentive from people buying them.

Reference
Braden, N. (2011). Cigarette butts, air pollution, resource depletion . . . tobacco harms our environment. Denver Post, 13. Retrieved from http://yourhub.denverpost.com/‌adamscounty/‌cigarette-butts-air-pollution-resource-depletion-tobacco-harms/‌TZWgt6abThkAny6XDcNXNP-ugc
Chastain, Z. (2008). The history of tobacco. In Z. Chastain (Author), Tobacco: Through the smokescreen (Vol. 22, pp. 18-39).
Chastain, Z. (2008). What is tobacco? In Tobacco: Through the smokescreen (Vol. 10, pp. 8-17). Broomall, PA, United States of America: Mason Crest.
Congressional Digest. (2007). Federal tobacco price supports. In Points of View Reference Center. (Excerpted from Tobacco Industry: Government Policy, 73(5), 137, May94)
Farrell, B. (2009). Up in smoke. Earth Island Journal, 23(4), 56-60. Retrieved from Points of View Reference Center database. (Accession No. 35825541)
Kowalski, K. M. (2008). Tobacco hurts you now. Current Health 1, 32(3), 12-15. Retrieved from Points of View Reference Center database. (Accession No. 34970412)
Martin, S. (2012). Number of smokers continues to rise. Manila Times: The Philippines. Retrieved from Points of View Reference Center database. (Accession No. 2W63548605984)
Merchant, C. (2002). Columbia guide to american environmental history. In The tobacco and cotton south, 1600 - 1900 (Vol. 20, pp. 39-58). New York NY, United States of America: Columbia University Press.
Qatar News Agency. (2011). People who quit smoking are happier & more satisfied with their health. Arabia 2000. Retrieved from Points of View Reference Center database. (Accession No. 6FI2840255499)
Saad, L. (2003). Gallup poll social series (Vol. 4). Retrieved from Points of View Reference Center database. (Accession No. 13503711)
Stuart, T., Jr. (2000). Tobacco taxing. National Journal, 31(31), 2439. Retrieved from Points of View Reference Center database. (Accession No. 3414673)

Cited: (Merchant, 2002) (Martin, 2012) In the 1920’s the annual per capita of the consumption of cigarettes in the United States approached about one thousand, and advertisers began to target women, thus the arrival of the cigarette age arrived http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCMzjJjuxQI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAExoSozc2c (Qatar News Agency, 2011) Chastain, Z. (2008). What is tobacco? In Tobacco: Through the smokescreen (Vol. 10, pp. 8-17). Broomall, PA, United States of America: Mason Crest. Congressional Digest. (2007). Federal tobacco price supports. In Points of View Reference Center. (Excerpted from Tobacco Industry: Government Policy, 73(5), 137, May94) Farrell, B Kowalski, K. M. (2008). Tobacco hurts you now. Current Health 1, 32(3), 12-15. Retrieved from Points of View Reference Center database. (Accession No. 34970412) Martin, S Merchant, C. (2002). Columbia guide to american environmental history. In The tobacco and cotton south, 1600 - 1900 (Vol. 20, pp. 39-58). New York NY, United States of America: Columbia University Press. Qatar News Agency. (2011). People who quit smoking are happier & more satisfied with their health. Arabia 2000. Retrieved from Points of View Reference Center database. (Accession No. 6FI2840255499) Saad, L Stuart, T., Jr. (2000). Tobacco taxing. National Journal, 31(31), 2439. Retrieved from Points of View Reference Center database. (Accession No. 3414673)