Tobacco
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco#mw-head
For the plant genus, see
Nicotiana. For the American electronic musician, see
Tobacco (musician).
Not to be confused with
Tabacco.
Part of
a series on
Tobacco[/b]
HISTORY
History of tobacco
BIOLOGY
Nicotiana (
Nicotiana tabacum)
Tobacco diseases
Types of tobacco
SOCIAL IMPACT
Health effects
Prevalence of consumption
Tobacco advertising
Tobacco politics
Tobacco smoking
PRODUCTION
Cultivation of tobacco
Curing of tobacco
Tobacco industry
Tobacco products
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Tobacco is an
agricultural product processed from the
leaves of plants in the genus
Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines.
[1] It is most commonly used as a drug, and is a valuable
cash crop for countries such as
Cuba,
China and the
United States. Tobacco is a name for any plant of the genus Nicotiana of the Solanaceae family (nightshade family) and for the product manufactured from the leaf and used in cigars and cigarettes, snuff, and pipe and chewing tobacco. Tobacco plants are also used in plant bioengineering, and some of the 60 species are grown as ornamentals. The chief commercial species, N. tabacum, is believed native to tropical America, like most nicotiana plants, but has been so long cultivated that it is no longer known in the wild. N. rustica, a mild-flavored, fast-burning species, was the tobacco originally raised in Virginia, but it is now grown chiefly in Turkey, India, and Russia. The alkaloid nicotine is the most characteristic constituent of tobacco and is responsible for its addictive nature. The harmful effects of tobacco derive from the thousands of different compounds generated in the smoke, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (such as benzpyrene), formaldehyde, cadmium, nickel, arsenic, radioactive polonium-210, tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNAs), phenols, and many others.
[2]
In consumption it most commonly appears in the forms of
smoking,
chewing,
snuffing, or
dipping tobacco. Tobacco had long been in use as an
entheogen in the Americas, but upon the arrival of
Europeans in North America, it quickly became popularized as a trade item and a widely-abused drug. This popularization led to the development of the southern economy of the
United States until it gave way to cotton. Following the
American Civil War, a change in demand and a change in labor force allowed for the development of the
cigarette. This new product quickly led to the growth of tobacco companies.
There are more than 70 species of tobacco in the plant genus
Nicotiana. The word
nicotiana (as well as
nicotine) is in honor of
Jean Nicot, French ambassador to Portugal, who in 1559 sent it as a medicine to the court of
Catherine de Medici.
[3]
Because of the powerfully addictive properties of
nicotine,
tolerance and
dependence develop. Absorption quantity, frequency, and speed of tobacco consumption are believed to be directly related to biological strength of nicotine dependence,
addiction, and tolerance.
[4][5] The usage of tobacco is an activity that is practiced by some 1.1 billion people, and up to 1/3 of the adult population.
[6]The
World Health Organization(WHO) reports it to be the leading preventable cause of death worldwide and estimates that it currently causes 5.4 million deaths per year.
[7] Rates of smoking have leveled off or declined in
developed countries, but continue to rise in
developing countries.
This plant sounds bad!