Cigarette Tree

A cigarette is a narrow cylinder containing a combustible material, typically tobacco, that is rolled into thin paper for smoking. The cigarette is ignited at one end, causing it to smolder; the resulting smoke is orally inhaled via the opposite end. Cigarette smoking is the most common method of tobacco consumption. The term ''cigarette'', as commonly used, refers to a tobacco cigarette, but the word is sometimes used to refer to other substances, such as a cannabis cigarette or an herbal cigarette. A cigarette is distinguished from a cigar by its usually smaller size, use of processed leaf, and paper wrapping, which is typically white.

Since the 1920s, scientists and doctors have been able to link smoking with respiratory illness. Researchers have identified negative health effects from smoking cigarettes such as cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), heart disease, and other health problems relating to nearly every organ of the body. Nicotine, the psychoactive drug in tobacco, makes cigarettes highly addictive. About half of cigarette smokers die of tobacco-related disease and lose on average 14 years of life. Every year, tobacco cigarettes kill more than 8 million people worldwide; with 1.2 million of those being non-smokers dying as the result of exposure to second-hand smoke. Second-hand smoke from cigarettes causes many of the same health problems as smoking, including cancer, which has led to legislation and policy that has prohibited smoking in many workplaces and public areas. Cigarette smoke contains over 7,000 chemical compounds, including arsenic, formaldehyde, hydrogen cyanide, lead, carbon monoxide, acrolein, and other poisonous substances. Over 70 of these are carcinogenic. Most modern cigarettes are filtered, although this does not make the smoke inhaled from them contain fewer carcinogens and harmful chemicals. Cigarette use by pregnant women has also been shown to cause birth defects, including low birth weight, fetal abnormalities, and premature birth. Smoking rates have generally declined in the developed world, but continue to rise in some developing nations.

Because of their adverse health effects many countries have strict legislation concerning the marketing and purchasing age of tobacco. Most nations outright ban commercials on cigarettes and have levied taxes on them to dissuade smokers to continue the habit. The first country to introduce a large scale anti-smoking campaign was Nazi Germany and despite its minimal success it did create a blueprint for many other nations to follow.

In the 21st century, a product called an electronic cigarette (e-cigarette or vape) was developed, in which the substance contained within it (typically a liquid solution containing nicotine) is vaporized by a battery-powered heating element, as opposed to being burned. Such devices are commonly promoted by their manufacturers as safer alternatives to conventional cigarettes, although there are some health risks associated with their use. Since e-cigarettes are a relatively new product, scientists do not possess data on their possible long-term health effects.

History

The earliest forms of cigarettes were similar to their predecessor, the cigar. Cigarettes appear to have had antecedents in Mexico and Central America around the 9th century in the form of reeds and smoking tubes. The Maya, and later the Aztecs, smoked tobacco and other psychoactive drugs in religious rituals and frequently depicted priests and deities smoking on pottery and temple engravings. The cigarette and the cigar were the most common methods of smoking in the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central and South America until recent times.

The North American, Central American, and South American cigarette used various plant wrappers; when it was brought back to Spain, maize wrappers were introduced, and by the 17th century, fine paper. The resulting product was called ''papelate'' and is documented in Goya's paintings ''La Cometa'', ''La Merienda en el Manzanares'', and ''El juego de la pelota a pala'' (18th century).

By 1830, the cigarette had crossed into France, where it received the name ''cigarette''; and in 1845, the French state tobacco monopoly began manufacturing them. The French word was adopted by English in the 1840s. Some American reformers promoted the spelling ''cigaret'', but this was never widespread and is now largely abandoned. Cigarettes are sometimes also called a ''fag'' in British slang.

The first patented cigarette-making machine was invented by Juan Nepomuceno Adorno of Mexico in 1847. In the 1850s, Turkish cigarette leaves had become popular. However, production climbed markedly when another cigarette-making machine was developed in the 1880s by James Albert Bonsack, which vastly increased the productivity of cigarette companies, which went from making about 40,000 hand-rolled cigarettes daily to around 4 million. At the time, these imported cigarettes from America had significant sales among the British smokers.

In the English-speaking world, the use of tobacco in cigarette form became increasingly widespread during and after the Crimean War, when British soldiers began emulating their Ottoman Turkish comrades and Russian enemies, who had begun rolling and smoking tobacco in strips of old newspaper for lack of proper cigar-rolling leaf. This was helped by the development of tobaccos suitable for cigarette use, and by the development of the Egyptian cigarette export industry.

Cigarettes may have been initially used in a manner similar to pipes, cigars, and cigarillos and not inhaled; for evidence, see the Lucky Strike ad campaign asking
consumers "Do You Inhale?" from the 1930s. As cigarette tobacco became milder and more acidic, inhaling may have become perceived as more agreeable. However, Moltke noticed in the 1830s (cf. ''Unter dem Halbmond'') that Ottomans (and he himself) inhaled the Turkish tobacco and Latakia from their pipes (w