Tobacco Timeline

Tobacco was first used by the peoples of the pre-Columbian Americas. Native Americans apparently cultivated the plant and smoked it in pipes for medicinal and ceremonial purposes.
Christopher Columbus brought a few tobacco leaves and seeds with him back to Europe. Europeans didn't get their first taste of tobacco until the mid-16th century, when adventurers and diplomats like France's Jean Nicot -- for whom nicotine is named -- began to popularize its use. Tobacco was introduced to France in 1556, Portugal in 1558, and Spain in 1559, and England in 1565.
The first successful commercial crop was cultivated in Virginia in 1612 by Englishman John Rolfe. Within seven years, it was the colony's largest export.
At first, tobacco was produced mainly for pipe-smoking, chewing, and snuff. Cigars didn't become popular until the early 1800s.
Cigarettes, which had been around in crude form since the early 1600s, didn't become widely popular in the United States until after the Civil War, with the spread of "Bright" tobacco, a uniquely cured yellow leaf grown in Virginia and North Carolina. Cigarette sales surged again with the introduction of the "White Burley" tobacco leaf and the invention of the first practical cigarette-making machine, sponsored by tobacco baron James Buchanan "Buck" Duke, in the late 1880s.
The negative health effects of tobacco were not initially known; in fact, most early European physicians subscribed to the Native American belief that tobacco can be an effective medicine.
A growth in smoking began by the early 20th century.
In 1930, researchers in Cologne, Germany, made a statistical correlation between cancer and smoking.
Eight years later, Dr. Raymond Pearl of Johns Hopkins University reported that smokers do not live as long as non-smokers.
By 1944, the American Cancer Society began to warn about possible ill effects of smoking, although it admitted that "no definite evidence exists" linking smoking and lung cancer. A statistical correlation between smoking and cancer had been demonstrated; but no causal relationship had been shown. More importantly, the general public knew little of the growing body of statistics. That changed in 1952, when Reader's Digest published "Cancer by the Carton," an article detailing the dangers of smoking. The effect of the article was enormous: Similar reports began appearing in other periodicals, and the smoking public began to take notice. The following year, cigarette sales declined for the first time in over two decades.
The tobacco industry responded swiftly. By 1954 the major U.S. tobacco companies had formed the Tobacco Industry Research Council to counter the growing health concerns. With counsel from TIRC, tobacco companies began mass-marketing filtered cigarettes and low-tar formulations that promised a "healthier" smoke. The public responded, and soon sales were booming again.
The Surgeon General's Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health was formed in the early 1960's. Convened in response to political pressures and a growing body of scientific evidence suggesting a causal relationship between smoking and cancer, the committee released a 387-page report in 1964 entitled "Smoking and Health." In unequivocal terms, it concluded that: "Cigarette smoking is causally related to lung cancer in men." It said that the data for women, "though less extensive, point in the same direction."
The report noted that the average smoker is nine to 10 times more likely to get lung cancer than the average non-smoker and cited specific carcinogens in cigarette smoke, including cadmium, DDT, and arsenic. The tobacco industry has been on the run -- albeit profitably -- ever since.
In 1965, Congress passed the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act requiring the surgeon general's warnings on all cigarette packages.
In 1971, all broadcast advertising was banned.
In 1990, smoking was banned on all interstate buses and all domestic airline flights lasting six hours or less.
In 1994, Mississippi filed the first of 22 state lawsuits seeking to recoup millions of dollars from tobacco companies for smokers' Medicaid bills.
And in 1995, President Clinton announced FDA plans to regulate tobacco, especially sales and advertising aimed at minors.

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