Tobacco generally refers to the leaves and other parts of certain South American plants that were domesticated and used by Native Americans for the alkaloid NICOTINE. Tobacco plants are a species of the genus Nicotiana, belonging to the Solanaceae...

When Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) reached America, he found that the Native Americans who had occupied the land for thousands of years were already using tobacco in much the same ways it is used today. The tobacco plant is native to America,...

Tobacco, Nicotiana tabacum (family Solanaceae), is grown in over one hundred countries around the world, in both temperate and tropical climates. It is a stout, rapidly growing annual, 1 to 2 meters tall. It has large, ovate to oblong leaves and...

Tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) is an herbaceous plant cultivated around the world for its leaves, which can be rolled into cigars, shredded for cigarettes and pipes, processed for chewing, or ground into snuff. Tobacco leaves are the source of...

Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the fresh leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. Tobacco has been growing on the American continent since about 6000 BC and began being used by native cultures at about 3000 BC. It has been smoked in...

Tobacco company Altadis SA said Thursday that Imperial Tobacco Group PLC has suggested making a $15.2 billion offer for the maker of Fortuna, Gitanes and Ducados cigarette brands.Altadis said in a statement that its board will meet within days to discuss what it called a...

About a third of the payments from tobacco companies to the states goes to health care and tobacco control, government auditors said Tuesday.The payments, part of a 1998 settlement by four of the nation's largest tobacco companies, were supposed to reimburse 46 states for past...

Seven years after being rebuffed by the Supreme Court, anti-smoking advocates are again seeking federal regulation of tobacco, a step they say is needed to deter children from lighting up and to get smokers to quit."It would have a huge public-health impact. This is a...

Seven years after being rebuffed by the Supreme Court, anti-smoking advocates rejoiced Thursday as lawmakers renewed a push for federal regulation of tobacco, a step they say is needed to deter children from lighting up and to get smokers to quit."Congress has the opportunity to...

In the excerpt below, Apperson assembles references to tobacco use from a wide variety of sources, including plays, pamphlets, and novels, to chronicle the varying degrees of acceptance of smoking as a social activity from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century.

In the following essay, Nash examines the well-organized smuggling operations that were designed to circumvent the high taxes placed on tobacco during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Such activities, the critic observes, resulted in an inaccurate historical accounting of the volume and “regional impact” of the tobacco trade in both England and Scotland.

In the following essay, Pagan traces the economic ascendancy established by the Virginia tobacco trade and how it translated into significant political power for the tobacco growers and the London-based tobacco importers.

An overview of tobacco, including where most tobacco plants are grown, what they contain, the products in which it is used, and the short-term and long-term effects it can have on one's health and well-being. Issues related to addiction and to the role of tobacco companies are also covered.

How harmful can tobacco and nicotine be?