Cigarette, Tobacco, Pipes... a long time ago

The history of Cigarettes and Tobacco date back to the early 16th century when Spaniards conquerors witnessed the Aztec Indians smoking a tobacco cigarette - it was a bamboo or reed tube stuffed with tobacco. Sometimes other Americans wrapped tobacco products in corn husks.
However it was the Spaniards who introduced the cigar as an indulgence for the affluent. Early in the 16th century, hobos of Seville picked up discarded cigar butts, shredded the contexts rolled them back in paper and termed those as cigarillos.
Nevertheless it was in the late 18th century that cigarettes became a symbol of wealth. For the wealthy, the tobacco was of a lighter, milder nature. A cigarette factory was well-known in 1853 but it was after the Crimean war where British got the first taste of cigarettes, which was the outset of cigarette's immense upcoming popularity. The French people gave the present name of cigarettes - little cigar.

Tobacco has promoted many cultural items including: the usage of peace pipes, advertisements, movies. From its discovery tobacco has been highly regarded used in cultural ceremonies, for leisure purposes, and so forth. At the arrivals of the Europeans, tobacco was came to be regarded with wealth and knowledge. Smoking in public has for a long time been something reserved for men and when done by women have been associated with promiscuity. In Japan during the Edo period, prostitutes and their clients would often approach one another under the guise of offering a smoke and the same was true for 19th century Europe.

Following the civil war, the usage of tobacco, primarily in cigarettes became associated with masculinity and power and is an image associated with the stereotypical capitalist. From the mid-1900s and to today Tobacco is often rejected. Bhutan is the only country in the world where tobacco sales are illegal.

In the Western world, tobacco pipe smoking has sometimes been seen as refined or dignified and has given rise to a variety of customized accessories and even apparel such as the smoking jacket, and the Pipe Smoker of the Year award in the UK.

Cannabis culture has its own traditions concerning pipe smoking and these differ from tobacco pipe smoking. For example, unlike tobacco smokers, marijuana smokers typically follow a custom of sharing a single pipe among two or more people.

In the Middle East and Central Asia, cannabis resin was gathered from living plants and used to make hashish. The hookah of India and the narghile of Persia, both of which filter smoke through water, were both developed as a means to smoke this gluey brown substance.

Native Americans smoked tobacco in pipes long before the arrival of Europeans. The calumet, or peace pipe, was smoked in ceremony to seal covenants and treaties.

In the 20th century, pipe smoking has been adopted as a preferred method of consumption for a variety of psychoactive drugs.

When John Rolf arrived in Jamestown in 1610, he attempted to grow a tobacco leaf from the small-leafed Nicotine Rustic strain cultivated by the Virginia Indians. By 1612, Rolf had obtained and grown the seed of a large-leafed Spanish Tobacco, Nicotine Tobacco, a subtropical plant with a special taste and aroma. The new strain was shipped to England in 1613 and was an instant success. This new harvest of golden-leaf tobacco saved the Jamestown colony by becoming its first exportable commodity.

For a time, tobacco was a medium of exchange for the settlers. Through barter, it was used to pay salaries and secure goods and services. By 1791, tobacco accounted for one fifth of all American exports. To this day, it is America's seventh largest cash crop with exports contributing billions of dollars to the U.S. balance of trade.