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 a herbal cigarette. A cigarette is distinguished from a cigar by its usually smaller size, use of processed leaf, different smoking method, and paper wrapping, which is typically white.
The tobacco industry comprises those persons and companies who are engaged in the growth, preparation for sale, shipment, advertisement, and distribution of tobacco and tobacco-related products. It is a global industry; tobacco can grow in any warm, moist environment, which means it can be farmed on all continents except Antarctica.
Tobacco smoking is the practice of burning tobacco and ingesting the resulting smoke. The smoke may be inhaled, as is done with cigarettes, or simply released from the mouth, as is generally done with pipes and cigars. The practice is believed to have begun as early as 5000–3000 BC in Mesoamerica and South America. Tobacco was introduced to Eurasia in the late 17th century by European colonists, where it followed common trade routes. The practice encountered criticism from its first import into the Western world onwards but embedded itself in certain strata of a number of societies before becoming widespread upon the introduction of automated cigarette-rolling apparatus.
The Men Who Killed Kennedy is a video documentary series by British television network ITV that depicts the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Originally broadcast in 1988 in two parts, it was rebroadcast in 1991 re-edited to three parts with additional material, and a fourth episode added in 1995. The addition of three further episodes in 2003 caused great controversy, particularly in the final episode implicating Lyndon B. Johnson and the withdrawal of these additional episodes.
Passive smoking is the inhalation of tobacco smoke, called passive smoke, secondhand smoke (SHS) or environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), by individuals other than the active smoker. It occurs when tobacco smoke diffuses into the surrounding atmosphere as an aerosol pollutant, which leads to its inhalation by nearby bystanders within the same environment. Exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke causes many of the same health effects caused by active smoking, although to a lower prevalence due to the reduced concentration of smoke that enters the airway.
Sir William Richard Shaboe Doll was a British physician who became an epidemiologist in the mid-20th century and made important contributions to that discipline. He was a pioneer in research linking smoking to health problems. With Ernst Wynder, Bradford Hill and Evarts Graham, he was credited with being the first to prove that smoking increased the risk of lung cancer and heart disease.
Kent is an American brand of cigarettes, currently owned and manufactured by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company in the United States and British American Tobacco elsewhere. The brand is named after Herbert Kent, a former executive at Lorillard Tobacco Company.
Tobacco products, especially when smoked or used orally, have serious negative effects on human health. Smoking and smokeless tobacco use is the single greatest cause of preventable death globally. As many as half of people who smoke tobacco or use it orally die from complications related to such use. It has been estimated that each year, in total about 6 million people die from tobacco-related causes, with 600,000 of these occurring in non-smokers due to secondhand smoke. It is further estimated to have caused 100 million deaths in the 20th century.
Within the sociology of knowledge, agnotology is the study of deliberate, culturally induced ignorance or doubt, typically to sell a product, influence opinion, or win favour, particularly through the publication of inaccurate or misleading scientific data (disinformation). More generally, the term includes the condition where more knowledge of a subject creates greater uncertainty.
Smoking is a practice in which a substance is combusted and the resulting smoke is typically inhaled to be tasted and absorbed into the bloodstream of a person. Most commonly, the substance used is the dried leaves of the tobacco plant, which have been rolled with a small rectangle of paper into an elongated cylinder called a cigarette. Other forms of smoking include the use of a smoking pipe or a bong.
Stanton Arnold Glantz is an American professor, author, and tobacco control activist. Glantz is a faculty member at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine, where he is a Professor of Medicine (retired) in the Division of Cardiology, the American Legacy Foundation Distinguished Professor of Tobacco Control, and former director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education. Glantz's research focused on the health effects of tobacco smoking.
In the early 20th century, German researchers found additional evidence linking smoking to health harms, which strengthened the anti-tobacco movement in the Weimar Republic and led to a state-supported anti-smoking campaign. Early anti-tobacco movements grew in many nations from the middle of the 19th century. The 1933–1945 anti-tobacco campaigns in Nazi Germany have been widely publicized, although stronger laws than those passed in Germany were passed in some American states, the UK, and elsewhere between 1890 and 1930. After 1941, anti-tobacco campaigns were restricted by the Nazi government.
Tobacco was long used in the early Americas. The arrival of Spain introduced tobacco to the Europeans, and it became a lucrative, heavily traded commodity to support the popular habit of smoking. Following the Industrial Revolution, cigarettes became hugely popular worldwide. In the mid-20th century, medical research demonstrated severe negative health effects of tobacco smoking including lung and throat cancer, which led to governments adopting policies to force a sharp decline in tobacco use.
A Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers was a historic first advertisement in a campaign run by major American tobacco companies on January 4, 1954, to create doubt by disputing recent scientific studies linking smoking cigarettes to lung cancer and other dangerous health effects.
The history of smoking dates back to as early as 5000 BC in the Americas in shamanistic rituals. With the arrival of the Europeans in the 16th century, the consumption, cultivation, and trading of tobacco quickly spread. The modernization of farming equipment and manufacturing increased the availability of cigarettes following the reconstruction era in the United States. Mass production quickly expanded the scope of consumption, which grew until the scientific controversies of the 1960s, and condemnation in the 1980s.
Judith Longstaff Mackay, SBS, OBE, JP, FRCP (Edin), FRCP (Lon) is a British-born and Hong Kong–based medical doctor and international tobacco control advocate who has led a campaign against tobacco in Asia since 1984, campaigning for tax increases to discourage youth smoking, for the creation of smoke-free areas, and against tobacco promotion. Her main interests are tobacco in low-income countries, women and tobacco, and challenging the transnational tobacco companies.
Geoffrey C. Kabat is an American epidemiologist, cancer researcher, and author. He has been on the faculty of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and State University of New York, Stony Brook. He was co-author of a disputed BMJ study funded by the tobacco industry that said secondhand smoke did not affect mortality. Along with his scientific publications, Kabat has written two books and many articles for general audiences.
Takeshi Hirayama was a Japanese cancer epidemiologist and anti-tobacco activist who served as the chief of the epidemiology division at the National Cancer Center in Tokyo from 1965 until 1985. He has been credited with publishing the first study linking passive smoking to lung cancer, and also conducted research on the relationship between certain dietary factors and cancer.
Horace Joules LRCP, MRCP, MRCS, FRCP was a British physician, health administrator and health campaigner, who played an important role in promoting public health and preventative medicine; particularly the link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer following the work of Richard Doll, Austin Bradford Hill, Ernst Wynder and Evarts Graham, and the adverse effects of air pollution.
The Institute for the Struggle against the Dangers of Tobacco was set up at the University of Jena in 1942. It was one of the first scientific institutes to discover the dangers of smoking tobacco, including the link between smoking and lung cancer. However, due to its relationship with the ruling Nazi regime, its work was not taken seriously after the Second World War.
