Often found packed tightly into cigarette paper, this dry and woody product is unrecognisable from its natural form

This dry and woody product is unrecognisable from its natural form

Tobacco has been harvested and used by humans for at least 8,000 years across North and South America. However, the link between tobacco exposure and declining health wasn’t recorded until the beginning of the 1600s, when the then-theory was written by an anonymous author. Initially, tobacco was used as a method to improve health. Tobacco is a flowering plant, and was used 2,000 years ago as part of religious ceremonies and in medicinal practices due to its antibacterial properties.

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This included wrapping the plant around wounds and chewing on the leaves to relieve toothache. Soon after, people discovered that the tobacco leaves could be burned and inhaled as a faster acting stimulant. Smoking, as it is commonly known as today, was quick to gain popularity. Tobacco was easy to access and people were completely unaware of the damaging impacts that inhaling the smoke had on the body, such as lung damage and an increased risk of cancer. It wasn’t until the early 1960s that hard evidence of tobacco’s detrimental health effects was published.

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Today, tobacco is grown and available to purchase in many countries, but some farmers have replaced tobacco crops with alternative plants as the detrimental effects smoking has on human health are more widely understood. Farmers who work on tobacco farms absorb volumes of nicotine equivalent to 50 cigarettes a day. Because nicotine is soluble in fats, farmers who handle tobacco leaves extensively can absorb nicotine through their skin. Even though the market for it has reduced considerably, around 1.3 billion people still use tobacco, with 6.7 million tonnes being produced every year.