Background
When explorers reached the New World, Native Americans had been growing and using tobacco for centuries. They used tobacco in rituals as a way to communicate with the spirits. It was also used in ceremonies to make peace (you've heard of the 'peace pipe').

Christopher Columbus brought a few tobacco leaves and seeds with him back to Europe. Tobacco was introduced in France in 1556, Portugal in 1558, Spain in 1559, and England in 1565. The first successful commercial crop was cultivated in Virginia in 1612. Within seven years, it was the colony's largest export. Over the next two centuries, the growth of tobacco as a cash crop fueled the demand in North America for slave labor.

At first, tobacco was produced mainly for pipe-smoking, chewing, and snuff. Cigars didn't become popular until the early 1800s, and cigarettes didn't become widely popular in the U.S. until after the Civil War. In 1882, the cigarette was a specialty item—made by hand and sold for a penny apiece. An automated cigarette rolling machine was put into use in 1883 and revolutionized production. The retail price was cut in half, and volume, which in pre-machine days had never exceeded 500 million, leaped to 10 billion by 1910.

In 1938, Dr. Raymond Pearl of Johns Hopkins University reported that smokers do not live as long as non-smokers. By 1944, the American Cancer Society had begun to warn about possible ill effects of smoking.

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