Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana.

It can be consumed, used as an organic pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, it is used in some medicines.[1] It is most commonly used as a recreational drug, and is a valuable cash crop for countries such as Cuba, China and United States. In consumption it most commonly appears in the forms of smoking, chewing, snuffing, or dipping tobacco, or snus. Tobacco has long been in use as an entheogen in the Americas. However, upon the arrival of Europeans in North America, it quickly became popularized as a trade item and as a recreational drug. This popularization led to the development of the southern economy of the United States until it gave way to cotton. Following the American Civil War, a change in demand and a change in labor force allowed for the development of the cigarette. This new product quickly led to the growth of tobacco companies, until the scientific controversy of the mid-1900s. There are many species of tobacco in the plant genus Nicotiana. The word nicotiana (as well as nicotine) is in honor of Jean Nicot, French ambassador to Portugal, who in 1559 sent it as a medicine to the court of Catherine de Medici.[2] Because of the addictive properties of nicotine, 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.[3][4] The usage of tobacco is an activity that is practiced by some 1.1 billion people, and up to 1/3 of the adult population.[5] The World Health Organization(WHO) reports it to be the leading preventable cause of death worldwide and estimates that it currently causes 5.4 million deaths per year.[6] Rates of smoking have leveled off or declined in developed countries, however they continue to rise in developing countries. Tobacco is cultivated similarly to other agricultural products. Seeds are sown in cold frames or hotbeds to prevent attacks from insects, and then transplanted into the fields. Tobacco is an annual crop, which is usually harvested mechanically or by hand. After harvest, tobacco is stored for curing, which allows for the slow oxidation and degradation of carotenoids. This allows for the agricultural product to take on properties that are usually attributed to the "smoothness" of the smoke. Following this, tobacco is packed into its various forms of consumption, which include smoking, chewing, sniffing, and so on.

Contents
[hide]

1 Etymology 2 History

2.1 Early developments 2.2 Popularization 2.3 Contemporary 3.1 Nicotiana 3.2 Types

3 Biology

4 Impact

4.1 Social 4.2 Demographic 4.3 Health 4.4 Economic 5.1 Cultivation 5.2 Curing 5.3 Consumption 5.4 Global Production

5 Production

5.4.1 Trends 5.4.2 Major Producers

5.4.2.1 China 5.4.2.2 Brazil 5.4.2.3 India 5.4.3.1 Child Labor 5.4.3.2 Economy 5.4.3.3 Environment

5.4.3 Problems in Tobacco Production

6 Art

6.1 Advertising 6.2 Cinema

7 Gallery 8 See also 9 References

9.1 Notes 9.2 Bibliography

10 Further reading 11 External links

[edit] 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]

[edit] History
This article needs additional citations for verification. Main article: History of tobacco See also: History of commercial tobacco in the United States
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[edit] Early developments

Tobacco had already long been used in the Americas when European settlers arrived and introduced the practice to Europe, where it became popular. At high doses, tobacco can become hallucinogenic;[citation needed] accordingly, Native Americans never used the drug recreationally. Instead, it was often consumed as an entheogen; among some tribes, this was done only by experienced shamans or medicine men.[citation needed] Eastern North American tribes carried large amounts of tobacco in pouches as a readily accepted trade item, and often smoked it in pipes, either in defined sacred ceremonies, or to seal a bargain,[9] and they smoked it at such occasions in all stages of life, even in childhood.[10] It was believed that tobacco is a gift from the Creator and that the exhaled tobacco smoke carries one's thoughts and prayers to heaven.[11]

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

[edit] 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. Following the American civil war, a change in demand and a change in labor force allowed inventor James Bonsack to create a machine that automated cigarette production. This increase in production allowed tremendous growth in the tobacco industry until the scientific revelations of the mid-1900s.

[edit] Contemporary

Following the scientific revelations of the mid-1900s, tobacco became condemned as a health hazard, and eventually became encompassed as a cause for cancer, as well as 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. 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)[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.

[edit] Biology
[edit] Nicotiana

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

Tobacco flower, leaves, and buds Main article: Nicotiana See also: List of tobacco diseases 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, that is particularly harmful 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,[13] a number of such animals have evolved the ability to feed on Nicotiana species without being harmed. Nonetheless, tobacco is unpalatable to many species, and therefore some tobacco plants (chiefly tree tobacco, N. glauca) have become established as invasive weeds in some places.

[edit] Types
Main article: Types of tobacco There are a number of types of tobacco including, 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. Firecured 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.[14] 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 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 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 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.

Las fras cifras del tabaquismo representan personas, seres humanos que se enferman y sufren. Y muestran una terrible epidemia extendida a todo el mundo, lo que se interpreta como una pandemia. Cada ao el tabaco causa 3.500.000 muertes en el mundo, lo cual es decir 10.000 muertes diarias, y que siguiendo la tendencia actual los fallecimientos llegarn a 10.000.000 por ao entre el 2020 y el 2030. Unas 500.000.000 de personas que viven actualmente en el mundo morirn por causa del tabaco. De estas muertes, 250.000.000 sern a una edad prematura, es decir, antes de

tiempo, y ocurrirn en la edad adulta. Esto es debido a que los fumadores de largo plazo tienen 50 % de probabilidades de morir como consecuencia de una enfermedad relacionada con el tabaco. Y de estas defunciones cerca de la mitad ocurrir a una edad media entre 40 y 60 aos, con una prdida de unos 20 aos de esperanza de vida normal. As se estima que para el ao 2020 el tabaco ser la mayor causa de muerte y discapacidad, y matar a ms de diez millones de personas por ao, causando ms muertes que el SIDA, accidentes de trnsito, homicidios y suicidios, alcoholismo y drogas ilcitas todos combinados.

Un tercio de la poblacin mundial de 15 aos y ms fuma, siendo la cantidad total de 1.100 millones de fumadores en el mundo. De estos, 800 millones pertenecen a los pases en desarrollo. Y en el ao 2025 los fumadores llegarn a 1.600 millones. En el mundo fuma el 47 % de los hombres y el 12 % de las mujeres. En los pases desarrollados fuma el 42 % de los hombres y el 24 % de las mujeres. En pases en desarrollo fuma el 48 % de los hombres y el 7 % de las mujeres. Desde 1950 hasta el 2000 el tabaco provoc la muerte de 60.000.000 de personas slo en los pases desarrollados, un

campo de muerte mayor que el que produjo la Segunda Guerra Mundial. En Estados Unidos 400.000 vidas se pierden por ao debido al consumo de tabaco. En Amrica Latina 150.000 vidas se pierden por ao debido al consumo de tabaco. Los incendios causados por el tabaquismo producen 25.000 muertes por ao en Estados Unidos. Cada ao aproximadamente 3000 personas no fumadoras mueren en Estados Unidos por cncer de pulmn, como resultado de respirar el humo de los dems. El hbito de fumar es causa de unas 25 enfermedades

comprobadas, siendo sobre todo responsable de: El 30 % de todas las cardiopatas coronarias. El 80 - 90 % de todos los casos de Enfisema-Enfermedad Pulmonar Obstructiva Crnica (EPOC) El 30 % de todas las muertes por cncer. El 90 % de los casos de Cncer de pulmn El 70 % de cncer de laringe. El 50 % de cncer en boca. El 50 % de cncer de esfago El 30 - 40 % de cncer de vejiga. El 30 % de cncer de pncreas. Los no fumadores que conviven con fumadores tienen un riesgo 35 veces mayor de contraer

cncer de pulmn que aquellos que no conviven con fumadores. El 42 % de los nios con enfermedades respiratorias crnicas es fumador pasivo. En el mundo unos 100.000 nios y jvenes por da se convierten en fumadores. Son los que la industria tabacalera nombra como sus "fumadores de reemplazo", porque van sustituyendo a los que desaparecen prematuramente.