A tobacco pipe, often called simply a pipe, is a device specifically made to smoke tobacco. It comprises a chamber for the tobacco from which a thin hollow stem (shank) emerges, ending in a mouthpiece. Pipes can range from very simple machine-made briar models to highly prized hand-made artisanal implements made by renowned pipemakers, which are often very expensive collector's items. Pipe smoking is the oldest known traditional form of tobacco smoking.
Tobacco is a product prepared from the leaves of the tobacco plant by curing them. The plant is part of the genus Nicotiana and of the Solanaceae (nightshade) family. While more than 70 species of tobacco are known, the chief commercial crop is N. tabacum. The more potent variant N. rustica is also used around the world.
A bong is a filtration device generally used for smoking cannabis, tobacco, or other herbal substances. In the bong shown in the photo, the gas flows from the lower port on the left to the upper port on the right.
A cigar is a rolled bundle of dried and fermented tobacco leaves made to be smoked. They are produced in a wide variety of sizes and shapes. Since the 20th century, almost all cigars are made up of three distinct components: the filler, the binder leaf which holds the filler together, and a wrapper leaf, which is often the best leaf used. Often the cigar will have a band printed with the cigar manufacturer's logo. Modern cigars often come with 2 bands, especially Cuban Cigar bands, showing Limited Edition bands displaying the year of production.
Cigarette smoke is an aerosol produced by the incomplete combustion of tobacco during the smoking of cigarettes. Temperatures in burning cigarettes range from about 400 ℃ between puffs to about 900 ℃ during a puff. During the burning of the cigarette tobacco, thousands of chemical substances are generated by combustion, distillation, pyrolysis and pyrosynthesis. Tobacco smoke is used as a fumigant and inhalant.
Tobacco smoking is the practice of smoking tobacco and inhaling tobacco smoke. 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.
A hookah, also known as the ḡalyān, is a single- or multi-stemmed instrument for vaporizing and smoking flavored tobacco, or sometimes cannabis or opium, whose vapor or smoke is passed through a water basin—often glass-based—before inhalation.
Smoking bans, or smoke-free laws, are public policies, including criminal laws and occupational safety and health regulations, that prohibit tobacco smoking in workplaces and other public spaces. Legislation may also define smoking as more generally being the carrying or possessing of any lit tobacco product.
Rolling paper is a specialty paper used for making cigarettes. Rolling papers are packs of several cigarette-size sheets, often folded inside a cardboard wrapper.
Passive smoking is the inhalation of smoke, called second-hand smoke (SHS), or environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), by persons other than the intended "active" smoker. It occurs when tobacco smoke permeates any environment, causing its inhalation by people within that environment. Exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke causes disease, disability, and death. The health risks of second-hand smoke are a matter of scientific consensus. These risks have been a major motivation for smoke-free laws in workplaces and indoor public places, including restaurants, bars and night clubs, as well as some open public spaces.
Pipe smoking is the practice of tasting the smoke produced by burning a substance, most commonly tobacco, in a pipe. It is the oldest traditional form of smoking. Although it has declined somewhat in popularity it is still widely practiced and is very common in some parts of Scandinavia.
Tobacco use has predominantly negative effects on human health and concern about health effects of tobacco has a long history. Research has focused primarily on cigarette tobacco smoking.
Nicotiana tabacum, or cultivated tobacco, is an annually-grown herbaceous plant. It is found only in cultivation, where it is the most commonly grown of all plants in the genus Nicotiana, and its leaves are commercially grown in many countries to be processed into tobacco. It grows to heights between 1 and 2 meters. Research is ongoing into its ancestry among wild Nicotiana species, but it is believed to be a hybrid of Nicotiana sylvestris, Nicotiana tomentosiformis, and possibly Nicotiana otophora.
Latakia tobacco is a specially prepared tobacco originally produced in Syria and named after the port city of Latakia. Now the tobacco is mainly produced in Cyprus. It is initially sun-cured like other Turkish tobaccos and then further cured over controlled fires of aromatic woods and fragrant herbs, which gives it an intense smokey-peppery taste and smell. Too strong for most people's tastes to smoke straight, it is used as a "condiment" or "blender", especially in English, Balkan, and some American Classic blends.
Smoking is a practice in which a substance is burned and the resulting smoke breathed in to be tasted and absorbed into the bloodstream. Most commonly the substance is the dried leaves of the tobacco plant which have been rolled into a small square of rice paper to create a small, round cylinder called a "cigarette". Smoking is primarily practiced as a route of administration for recreational drug use because the combustion of the dried plant leaves vaporizes and delivers active substances into the lungs where they are rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream and reach bodily tissue. In the case of cigarette smoking these substances are contained in a mixture of aerosol particles and gasses and include the pharmacologically active alkaloid nicotine; the vaporization creates heated aerosol and gas into a form that allows inhalation and deep penetration into the lungs where absorption into the bloodstream of the active substances occurs. In some cultures, smoking is also carried out as a part of various rituals, where participants use it to help induce trance-like states that, they believe, can lead them to spiritual enlightenment.
Tobacco is the agricultural product of the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. All species of Nicotiana contain the addictive drug nicotine—a stimulant and sedative contained in all parts of the plants except the seeds—which occurs in varying amounts depending on the species and variety cultivated. See types of tobacco and curing of tobacco for more information.
A cigar cutter is a mechanical device designed to cut one end off a cigar so that it may be properly smoked. Although some cigars are cut on both ends, or twirled at both ends, the vast majority come with one straight cut end and one end in a "cap" which must be cut off for the cigar to be smoked. Most quality handmade cigars, regardless of shape, will have a cap which is one or more small pieces of a wrapper pasted onto one end of the cigar with either a natural tobacco paste or with a mixture of flour and water. The cap end of a cigar is the rounded end without the tobacco exposed, and this is the end one should always cut. The cap may be cut with a knife or bitten off, but if the cap is cut jaggedly or without care, the end of the cigar will not burn evenly and smokeable tobacco will be lost.
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.
Smoking in China is prevalent, as the People's Republic of China is the world's largest consumer and producer of tobacco: there are 350 million Chinese smokers, and China produces 42% of the world's cigarettes. The China National Tobacco Corporation is by sales the largest single manufacturer of tobacco products in the world and boasts a monopoly in Mainland China generating between 7 and 10% of government revenue. Within the Chinese guanxi system, tobacco is still a ubiquitous gift acceptable on any occasion, particularly outside urban areas. Tobacco control legislation does exist, but public enforcement is rare to non-existent outside the most highly internationalized cities, such as Shanghai and Beijing. Outside the mainland however, enforcement is strong in the Hong Kong special administrative region. Furthermore, outside the largest cities in China, smoking is considered socially acceptable anywhere at any time, even if it is technically illegal.
The use of tobacco products in Egypt is widespread. It is estimated that approximately twenty percent of the population uses tobacco products daily. Cigarettes are the most common form of tobacco consumption in Egypt, with an estimated twenty billion cigarettes smoked annually in the country. After cigarettes, shisha water-pipes are the most common form of tobacco consumption. Many Egyptians are not fully aware of the health risks of using a water-pipe and many believe it to be less harmful than cigarettes.
