Some History On Smoking

If we look in our past and try to find out as to from where did smoking originate and which country started it off first. So let me tell you smoking started in 600 Bc in America with the growth of tobacco. People start using the leaves of the tobacco plant for smoking and chewing. How and why tobacco was first used in the Americas no one knows. The first users are thought to have been the Mayan civilizations of Central America. Its use was gradually adopted throughout the nations of Central and most of North and South America. Rodrigo de Jerez became the first European smoker in history. One of Christopher Columbus's fellow explorers, he took his first puff of the New World's version of the cigar in Cuba. When he returned home he made the mistake of lighting up in public and was thrown into prison for three years by the Spanish Inquisition - becoming the world's first victim of the anti-smoking lobby! Tobacco, the first book in the English language about tobacco, published in the year 1595.

Sir Francis Drake: the first sea captain to sail around the world may have been the man to introduce tobacco to England. Michael Feodorovich: the first Romanov Czar declared the use of tobacco a deadly sin in Russia and forbade possession for any purpose. Tobacco court established to try breaches of the law. Usual punishments were slitting of the lips or a terrible and sometimes fatal flogging. In Turkey, Persia, and India, the death penalty was prescribed as a cure for the habit.
At the beginning of the 17th Century, tobacco was just starting to be regularly imported into the UK, with amounts of 25,000 pounds being shipped from the Americas. By the turn of the century this amount had increased to a figure nearing 38 million pounds and the competitive marketing and tobacco production on a large scale began to get underway.

Pipe smoking and snuff had become popular in London during the 17th Century and later smoking cigars became the trend but it was not until the mid 1800's that the cigarette as we know it was manufactured. With the introduction of cigarette making machines, which at the time produced about 200 cigarettes a minute, the tobacco industry began to grow and grow.

More and more tobacco companies in the US were being prosecuted by individuals wanting compensation for the death of their relatives or for their own ill health, which they claimed had been caused by smoking. Claimants became more successful in winning their cases as time went on and an increasing number of tobacco companies were demanded to pay out huge amounts of money in damages.

Advertising cigarette brands in the media has now been banned in many countries in order to try and prevent more and more people taking up the habit and there are smoking restrictions in all indoor public places and all workplaces in several cities and countries including New York, California, Florida, Norway, England, Ireland and Spain.
It is also important to note that in 2003 smoking was banned in New York city. Advertisement and promotion of tobacco was banned in UK. Full smoking ban goes into effect in Australia (1 December). Smoking banned in Queensland since July, where it is required that even outdoor areas must be smoke free if food is served.

US Surgeon General releases a major report detailing the harms of secondhand smoke, claiming, “The debate is over” (27 June).

In Canada, near-total smoking bans introduced in Ontario and Quebec provinces (31 May).
Scotland bans smoking in all enclosed public places including every pub, club and bar, and some outside shelters. Guidelines give local councils the power to ban smoking in outdoor public parks (26 March).
Members of Parliament vote overwhelmingly in favour of a ban on smoking in all enclosed public places, including pubs and private members' clubs, in England and Wales, from 2007 (14 February).

Spain bans smoking in the workplace (1 January) but allows bars and restaurants in excess of 100 square meters to have a designated smoking room. Bars smaller than 100 square meters can choose to be 'smoking' or 'non-smoking'.

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