What is Tobacco? Tobacco is a green, leafy plant that is grown in warm climates.

After it is picked, it is dried, ground up, and used in different ways. It can be smoked in a cigarette, pipe, or cigar. It can be chewed (called smokeless tobacco or chewing tobacco) or sniffed through the nose (called snuff). Nicotine is one of the more than 4,000 chemicals in cigarettes and its smoke. It is the chemical that makes tobacco addictive or habit forming. Once we smoke, chew, or sniff tobacco, nicotine goes into our bloodstream, and our body wants more. The nicotine in tobacco makes it a drug. This means that when we use tobacco, it changes our body in some way. Because nicotine is a stimulant, it speeds up the nervous system, so we feel like we have more energy. It also makes the heart beat faster and raises blood pressure. History of Tobacco Tobacco has a long history in the Americas. The Mayan Indians of Mexico carved drawings in stone showing tobacco use. These drawings date back to somewhere between 600 to 900 A.D. Tobacco was grown by American Indians before the Europeans came from England, Spain, France, and Italy to North America. Native Americans smoked tobacco through a pipe for special religious and medical purposes. They did not smoke every day. Tobacco was the first crop grown for money in North America. In 1612 the settlers of the first American colony in Jamestown, Virginia grew tobacco as a cash crop. It was their main source of money. Other cash crops were corn, cotton, wheat, sugar, and soya beans. Tobacco helped pay for the American Revolution against England. Also, the first President of the U.S. grew tobacco. By the 1800's, many people had begun using small amounts of tobacco. Some chewed it. Others smoked it occasionally in a pipe, or they hand-rolled a cigarette or cigar. On the average, people smoked about 40 cigarettes a year. The first commercial cigarettes were made in 1865 by Washington Duke on his 300-acre farm in Raleigh, North Carolina. His hand-rolled cigarettes were sold to soldiers at the end of the Civil War. It was not until James Bonsack invented the cigarette-making machine in 1881 that cigarette smoking became widespread. Bonsack's cigarette machine could make 120,000 cigarettes a day. He went into business with Washington Duke's son, James "Buck" Duke. They built a factory and made 10 million cigarettes their first year and about one billion cigarettes five years later. The first brand of cigarettes were packaged in a box with baseball cards and were called Duke of Durham. Buck Duke and his father started the first tobacco company in the U.S. They named it the American Tobacco Company. The American Tobacco Company was the largest and most powerful tobacco company until the early 1900's. Several companies were making cigarettes by the early 1900's. In 1902 Philip Morris company came out with its Marlboro brand.

They were selling their cigarettes mainly to men. Everything changed during World War I (1914-18) and World War II (1939-45). Soldiers overseas were given free cigarettes every day. At home production increased and cigarettes were being marketed to women too. More than any other war, World War II brought more independence for women. Many of them went to work and started smoking for the first time while their husbands were away. By 1944 cigarette production was up to 300 billion a year. Service men received about 75% of all cigarettes produced. The wars were good for the tobacco industry. Since WW II, there have been six giant cigarette companies in the U.S. They are Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, American Brands, Lorillard, Brown & Williamson, and Liggett & Myers (now called the Brooke Group). They make millions of dollars selling cigarettes in the U.S. and all over the world. In 1964 the Surgeon General of the U.S. (the chief doctor for the country) wrote a report about the dangers of cigarette smoking. He said that the nicotine and tar in cigarettes cause lung cancer. In 1965 the Congress of the U.S. passed the Cigarette Labelling and Advertising Act. It said that every cigarette pack must have a warning label on its side stating "Cigarettes may be hazardous to your health." By the 1980's, the tobacco companies had come out with new brands of cigarettes with lower amounts of tar and nicotine and improved filters to keep their customers buying and to help reduce their fears. The early 1980's were called the "tar wars" because tobacco companies competed aggressively to make over 100 low tar and "ultra" low tar cigarettes. Each company made and sold many different brands of cigarettes. In 1984 Congress passed another law called the Comprehensive Smoking Education Act. It said that the cigarette companies every three months had to change the warning labels on cigarette packs. It created four different labels for the companies to rotate. Since the 1980's, federal, state, local governments, and private companies have begun taking actions to restrict cigarette smoking in public places. The warning labels were the first step. Tobacco companies cannot advertise cigarettes on television or radio. It is against a law that was passed by Congress in 1971. Many cities across the U.S. do not allow smoking in public buildings and restaurants. Since 1990, airlines have not allowed smoking on airplane flights in the U.S. that are six hours or less. State taxes on cigarettes have increased. Why People Smoke Most people start smoking when they are in their teens and are addicted by the time they reach adulthood. Some have tried to quit but have returned to cigarettes because smoking is such a strong addiction. It is a habit that is very difficult to break. There are many different reasons why people smoke. Three of the main reasons that young people smoke are to look mature, to be like their friends, and to experiment. Since teens see older people all around them smoking, especially their parents and relatives, they smoke to act older. If their friends or peers smoke, they may feel pressured

What's in a Cigarette & Disease: Chemicals, Cancer and Heart Disease The main ingredient in cigarettes is tobacco. Tobacco is a green, leafy plant that is grown in warm climates. Farmers use many chemicals to grow tobacco. They use fertilizers to make the soil rich and insecticides to kill the insects that eat the tobacco plant. After the tobacco plants are picked, they are dried, and machines break up the leaves into small pieces. Artificial flavorings and other chemicals are added. Some chemicals are put in cigarettes to keep them burning; otherwise, they would go out. There are over 4,000 chemicals in cigarettes. 51 of them are known to be carcinogenic. A carcinogen is something that causes cancer. Cancer is a disease that often kills those who have it. There are many types of cancer: breast, lung, larynx, stomach, prostrate, kidney, leukemia (cancer of the blood), etc. In all kinds of cancer, the cells keep dividing and forming new, abnormal cells. These cells are not normal or healthy. Our bodies are made up of thousands of cells. In a healthy person, new cells are made only when the body needs them. In a person with cancer, the abnormal cells destroy the normal cells, invading them like an army. If cells divide when new cells are not needed, a growth or hard mass forms. It could be small like a pea or large like a grapefruit. A cancerous growth is called a malignant tumor. Cancer usually kills a person when it spreads to other parts of the body. Sometimes cancer cells break away from a malignant tumor and find their way into the bloodstream. They travel to another part of the body or organ like a kidney or lung. There they start multiplying and dividing and form new cancerous tumors. For example, if a woman who has a malignant tumor in her breast does not have it removed while it is small, part of the tumor might break away and go into her bloodstream. From there it may travel to her brain and give her brain cancer. Chemicals in cigarettes and cigarette smoke are known to cause not only cancer but also other serious health problems. Many of the chemicals are poisonous. If a person ate one pack of cigarettes, he/she would die.

Familiar Chemicals in Cigarettes Chemical Found in: carbon car exhaust monoxide nicotine bug sprays tar material to make roads arsenic rat poison ammonia cleaning products hydrogen gas chamber poison cyanide cyanide deadly poison

acetone butane DDT formaldehyde sulfuric acid cadmium freon geranic acid methoprene

nail polish remover cigarette lighter fluid insecticides to preserve dead bodies car batteries used to recharge batteries damages earth's ozone layer a fragrance a pesticide a sweetener not permitted to maltitol be used in foods in the U.S. Sources: Dr. Joel Dunnington, Tobacco Almanac, Revised, May 1993. Three of the most widely known chemicals are nicotine, tar, and carbon monoxide. Nicotine is a strong poisonous drug. It is the main ingredient in insecticides or bug sprays. In its pure form, just one drop on a person's tongue would kill him/her. Tar is the oily material which remains after tobacco passes through the filter. When a smoker inhales, a lot of the tar sticks to and blackens the lungs. Carbon monoxide is a poisonous gas. A smoker inhales this gas which is also found in the exhaust of a car. This gas interferes with our respiratory (breathing) and circulatory (heart, arteries, and veins) systems. When we breathe in air through our nose and mouth, the air passes down the windpipe (trachea) and bronchial tubes into the lungs. The cilia which are made up of small hairs and mucous (a sticky fluid also found in the nose) help to clean this air as it moves down and into the lungs. The cilia remove small pieces of dirt, dust, and germs.

Credit: Cancer of the Larynx, National Cancer Institute, NIH, 2/92

We each have two lungs. They are protected by the ribs and separated by the heart. In a healthy nonsmoker, the lungs are made up of soft, spongy, pinkish-gray tissue.

The lungs also have hundreds of air sacs that fill with air when we inhale or breathe in. They are elastic like rubber bands. One of the jobs of the lungs is to take oxygen in from the air. This oxygen is carried in the blood to the heart. The heart pumps the oxygen rich blood throughout the body by arteries. Arteries are large tubes with thick, strong walls. Oxygen is used by all cells of the body to do their work. The lungs also must get rid of carbon dioxide which is the waste product of the cells' work. When we exhale, breathe out, we are getting rid of the carbon dioxide from the body. When a person smokes cigarettes, the carbon monoxide in the smoke gets into his/her blood stream. This reduces the amount of oxygen going to the heart. In addition, the chemicals in cigarette smoke narrow the walls of the arteries. With less oxygen passing through the arteries, the heart must work harder. Blood pressure also goes up.

The Dangers of Smoking Cigarettes for Smokers Cycle of Addiction Nicotine is the chemical that makes cigarette smoking addictive. It is just as addictive as heroin or cocaine. Smoking is a habit that is not easily stopped. The body and mind want and need the nicotine. If a person smokes more than five cigarettes a day, he/she is usually addicted. When people inhale the smoke of cigarettes, the nicotine goes deep into the lungs. From the lungs it goes into the bloodstream and is carried to the heart and then the brain. It only takes six seconds for nicotine to reach the brain. How Cigarettes Addict

Lungs quickly absorb nicotine and other chemicals, which go directly to the heart, then the brain. As a reslut, smoking delivers drugs to the brain much faster than other modes of delivery, such as injection with a needle.

Credit: Figure 6,Tobacco: Biology & Politics, HEALTH EDCO, Waco, Texas. Nicotine is a stimulant. It speeds things up. It makes the heart beat faster and increases blood pressure. It makes smokers feel more alert or awake. After about 45 minutes when the level of nicotine in the blood goes down, they start to feel withdrawal symptoms. Withdrawal is the feeling they have when the nicotine is taken away. They may feel tired and irritable (angry, impatient, nervous). Smokers slowly increase the number of cigarettes they smoke to prevent the bad feelings of withdrawal. They keep increasing the number of cigarettes until they reach a certain level of nicotine in their blood. Usually they will light up a cigarette before they start to feel any withdrawal symptoms. People smoking low tar and nicotine cigarettes will have to smoke more cigarettes to reach their maintenance level. After sleeping, the level of nicotine in the blood is lower than it is during the day. Therefore, heavy smokers will usually begin their day with a cigarette very soon after waking up. The nicotine will stimulate them and make them feel awake. A person can tell how addicted he/she is to smoking by how soon after waking, he/she lights up the first cigarette of the day.