HISTORY


The beginnings in Indian religious ceremony
History of tobacco and tobacco products started for the Europeans on 12th October 1492, when Christopher Columbus disembarked on one of the Bahamas islands. At his disembarkation the natives came to greet the white God. They brought him many gifts and among them also big, dried leaves of an unknown plant, which was tobacco.Columbus has also written in his logbook, that he had met men and women, who had carried fire in their hands and they had smoked. Those men and women were carrying smoking pipes with herbs and among different herbs there was also tobacco. They lit up fire at one end of each pipe and on the other end they inhaled the smoke. That's how they intoxicated themselves and this also made them sleep. Columbus added that the smoke also kept them off the tiredness. After his return to Spain, he reported about that unusual smoking habit.
Tobacco conquers Europe
Reputation of tobacco spread to east mostly because of Jean Nicot, French ambassador in Portugal. He also gave the name to that plant HERBA NICOTIANA, and its main substance NICOTINE.In 1560 Jean Nicote sent some pieces of tobacco to the mother of French King, Catherine de Medici together with the report about medicinally power of tobacco. He recommended her to inhale pulverised tobacco leaves.In that time people started to call tobacco HERBA PANACEJA - the plant that cures everything.News about medicinally power of tobacco quickly spread over Europe. Sir Francis Drake first brought pipe to England in 1586. Smoking a pipe then became a habit, mostly for English high society. At the end of the sixteenth century tobacco conquered Turkey, although Turkish authorities opposed smoking. After Turkey, tobacco conquered Near East and whole Balkan, where people started to smoke cigarettes and 'water pipes'.
First opponents appear
Soon after tobacco smoking was spread over Europe first opponents appeared. At first there were writers and other wise people, who opposed the praise of tobacco as a very healthy plant and they also opposed tobacco's use for intoxicating.One of important opponents was English king James I., who described smoking as "… for eyes disgusting habit, offensive for nose, harmful for brains and dangerous for lungs…" He has also said that black, stinky smoke of tobacco is the same as soot on the bottom of hell.Although there were so many opponents, smoking didn't stop spreading. Authorities in different countries didn't know how to act, to tell people that smoking was very harmful, on the other hand, the country had big income by tobacco taxes.
More and more people smoke and also first cigarettes appear
Smoking habits changed a lot in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In Spain and in Portugal people smoked cigarettes, but in England, Germany and in the Netherlands people smoked pipes.By exchanging Spanish habits and English habits during Napoleon's wars cigarette smoking was introduced in England.Thus cigarette smoking started and it was also soon spread in Turkey. In 1767 Casanova talked about small smoking pipes named SIGARITE. In the eighteenth century Francisco Goya drew smokers with cigarettes. Other Europeans started smoking cigarettes after the war between Turkey and Russia. Since then cigarette smoking spread quickly all over the world because cigarettes, which were in a piece of paper wrapped tobacco, with possibility of inhaling tobacco's smoke, enabled more people to smoke.
Tobacco becomes pleasure and poison
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries tobacco industry developed. Later, by the development of movie industry first advertisement, that presented smoking as a "fountain of pleasure" appeared.After certain progress in chemistry it was possible to find out what kind of substances there are in tobacco's leaves. So in 1950 people found out how harmful tobacco was and then American medical department published their first report about tobacco.In 1970 medical council decided that on every box of cigarettes there must be warning how harmful cigarettes are for our health. But people didn't care about it and they still thought that smoking provided your body some special pleasure.It is also very important to know that all researches, all statements about how harmful nicotine is, and all acts of authorities didn't influence the consumption of tobacco in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Epidemic spreading of smoking
Epidemic spreading of smoking began soon after first boxes of cigarettes. At the very beginning smoking captured men and a few decades later, women. This delay results in smaller number of women whit lung-cancer. In Slovenia epidemic spreading of tobacco started with World War I. when our authorities provided soldiers with boxes of cigarettes.About two decades later smoking started to spread among Slovene women, too.
Smokers are giving up smoking but there are still more and more smokers
In our time people have changed their mind. We know that smoking is very harmful, we know all of poisonous substances in tobacco and we are aware of the bad effects of passive smoking. Many smokers have given up smoking but on the other hand there are more and more young people and women who smoke and also there are more and more "hard smokers" who smoke over a few boxes of cigarettes a day. Smoking habits are different in different countries. They depend on number of young people and women who have already been addicted of smoking. There is still rapid growth of consumption of tobacco, mostly in countries that are developing and in countries that are still underdeveloped.
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