Tobacco has a long cultural, economic, and social history in the United States. Tobacco cultivation near Jamestown, Virgina Colony, in 1610 was the beginning of the plant's development as a cash crop with a strong demand in England. By the beginning of the 18th century, tobacco became a significant economic force in the American colonies, especially in Virginia's tidewater region surrounding Chesapeake Bay. Vast plantations were built along rivers, and socioeconomic systems were developed to grow and distribute the crop. In 1713, the Virginia General Assembly (under the leadership of Governor Alexander Spotswood) passed a Tobacco Act requiring the inspection of all tobacco intended for export or for use as legal tender.[1] American tobacco farmers sold their crops on consignment to merchants in London, which required them to take out loans for farm expenses from London guarantors in exchange for tobacco delivery and sale.[2] As the demand for tobacco grew in continental Europe, further colonization and tobacco production in British America saw a parallel increase,[3] and tobacco cultivation spread into Britain's other Southern Colonies and beyond. A brisk trade developed among wholesalers in Charleston and New Orleans to ship tobacco to London merchants.[4] Tobacco use had also become common in early American society and was heavily consumed before and after the declaration of American independence in 1776.
An estimated 34.3 million people in the United States, or 14% of all adults aged 18 years or older, smoked cigarettes in 2015, a figure that decreased to 13.7% of U.S. adults in 2018.[5] In 2015, the prevalence of smoking in individual U.S. states ranged from between 9.1% and 12.8% in Utah to between 23.7% and 27.4% in West Virginia. By region, smoking prevalence was highest in the Midwest (18.7%) and South (15.3%) and lowest in the West (12.4%). Men tended to smoke more than women: In 2015, 16.7% of men smoked compared to 13.6% of women.[6]
Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, accounting for approximately 443,000 deaths—1 of every 5 deaths—each year.[7] Cigarette smoking alone has cost the United States $96 billion in direct medical expenses and $97 billion in lost productivity per year, or an average of $4,260 per adult smoker.
In 1964 the Surgeon General of the United States published its landmark report, Smoking and Health, which identified smoking as the cause of many health problems.[8] Since then, the public perception of tobacco has shifted from that of a harmless product to a clear hazard for the health. From 1965 to 2022, smoking rates in the United States plummeted by some 73%, from 42.6% of all adult Americans to 11.6%.[9]
Commercial tobacco production in colonial America dates back to the 17th century, when the first commercial crops were planted. The industry originated in the production of tobacco to be used in pipes and snuff. With the advent of the American Revolution, trade with the colonies was interrupted, and this shifted the tobacco trade to other countries. There was, however, an increase in demand for tobacco in the United States, where the use of cigars and chewing tobacco increased. The War of 1812 would introduce the Andalusiancigarette to the rest of Europe, and from 1880, production of tobacco in the United States increasingly focused on the manufactured cigarette.
Current smoking and vaping among adults
According to research by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), for every 100 U.S adults age 18 or older, more than 15 smoked cigarettes in 2016. In other words, there were about 37.8 million cases of cigarette smokers in the United States. At the same time, more than 16 million Americans were living with a smoking-related disease. Nonetheless, the number of smokers in 2016 has decreased to 15.5% from 2005, a difference of 5.4% difference. This pointed to an increase in the number of smokers who have quit.[10]
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In 2020, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) estimated that 5.66 million adults, or 2.3% of the U.S population, reported that they were vaping. Among users in the U.S. population, more than 2.21 million were also current cigarette smokers (39.1%), more than 2.14 million were former smokers (37.9%), and more than 1.30 million had never smoked (23.1%).[11] Previous 2018 statistics estimated that about 14.9% of adults aged 18 and over had ever used electronic cigarettes, and around 3.2% of all adults in the United States were current e-cigarette users. The study also noted that 34 million U.S. adults were current smokers, with e-cigarette usage at its highest among current smokers and former smokers who are attempting to quit smoking cigarettes or had recently quit.[12]
The decade of the 2010s saw both the advent and uptick in the prevalence of vaping among American youths, as e-cigarettes became the latest nicotine-delivery device for U.S. consumers. The first commercial e-cigarette hit the markets in 2006.[13] Reports in 2018 estimated that youth vaping is present among 27.5% of the youth population. This is a stark comparison to the 5.5% of reported youths within the United States who smoke combustible nicotine such as cigarettes.[14]
According to a U.S. government survey data released in April 2023, smoking rates in the United States fell even further by 2022, with 1 of 9 U.S. adults reporting to be a smoker. In 2022, the percentage of U.S. adult smokers dropped from 12.5 percent in 2020–2021 to about 11 percent. The survey data also showed that e-cigarette use increased to nearly 6 percent in 2022 from about 4.5 percent the previous year. Only about 2 percent of high school students smoked traditional cigarettes in 2022, but about 14 percent used e-cigarettes, according to other CDC data.[15]
The U.S. tobacco industry, form its earliest advertising to its more recent public relations campaigns, has long portrayed smoking to be a harmless activity. A 1999 feature film, The Insider, centered on the production of a news segment about "Big Tobacco" and its communications methods. In the 21st century, the rising influence of social media in the United States has provided new generations of teenagers and young adults with a new platform for anti-smoking information. A prime example is TruthOrange, an organization that has approached YouTube's content creators with requests to sponsor their ads.
Former and current tobacco and anti-tobacco lobbies in the United States include:
The CDC reported in 2011 that 443,000 Americans died of smoking or exposure to secondhand smoke each year. For every smoking-related death, another 20 people suffered with a smoking-related disease. (2011)[19]
California's adult smoking rate has dropped nearly 50% since the state began the nation's longest-running tobacco control program in 1988. California's state government reported saving a total of $86 billion in healthcare costs after allocating $1.8 billion for tobacco control; this was a 50:1 return on investment compared to total cost of the state's tobacco control program in its first 15 years.[19]
Companies and products
Some of the notable tobacco companies in the US are:
Historian Keith Wailoo argues that the U.S. cigarette industry especially targeted African Americans, starting in the 1960s. It took advantage of several converging trends: First was the increased national attention on the dangers of smoking itself. Cigarette companies then took the initiative in fighting back, developing and promoting menthol-flavored brands that they advertised as more soothing to the throat. The industry also advertised these as better for health. A second trend was the federal ban on tobacco advertising on radio and television in the 1970s. There was no corresponding ban on advertising in the print media, however, so cigarette makers responded with large-scale advertising in Black newspapers and magazines. They also erected billboards in inner-city neighborhoods. The third trend was the U.S. civil rights movement of the 1960s. Big Tobacco responded by investing heavily in the civil rights movement, winning the gratitude of many national and local leaders. Menthol-flavored cigarette brands systematically sponsored local events in the Black community and subsidized major black organizations, notably the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Cigarette makers also subsidized churches and schools. Their marketing initiatives were a success, as the rate of smoking in the Black community grew, even while it declined among whites. Eventually, three out of four Black smokers in the United States purchased menthol cigarettes.[20]
Child labor
Cigarette sales and lung cancer mortality in the US
An estimated half a million children worked in the fields of America picking food as of 2012, although the precise number working in tobacco fields is unknown. U.S. federal law provides no minimum age for work on small farms, and children ages twelve and up may work for hire on any size farm for unlimited periods outside school hours and with parental permission. According to Human Rights Watch, farm work is the most hazardous occupation open to children.[21] In eastern North Carolina, a major tobacco state, children have been interviewed as young as 14 who worked harvesting tobacco, and recent news reports describe children as young as nine and ten doing such work.[22]
^Land, Jeremy (2023-07-06), "Inter-colonial Trade", Colonial Ports, Global Trade, and the Roots of the American Revolution (1700 — 1776), BRILL, pp. 100–119, ISBN978-90-04-54269-3, retrieved 2024-03-19
Beer, George Louis. The origins of the British colonial system, 1578-1660 (1908) good coverage of tobacco system online
Brandt, Allan. The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product That Defined America (2007).
Breen, T. H. (1985). Tobacco Culture. Princeton University Press. ISBN0-691-00596-6. Source on tobacco culture in 18th-century Virginia pp. 46–55.
Burns, Eric. The Smoke of the Gods: A Social History of Tobacco (Temple University Press, 2007)
Goodman, Jordan. Tobacco in History and Culture: An Encyclopedia (2 vol Thomason-Gale, 2005)
Hahn, Barbara. Making Tobacco Bright: Creating an American Commodity, 1617-1937 (Johns Hopkins University Press; 2011) 248 pages; examines how marketing, technology, and demand figured in the rise of Bright Flue-Cured Tobacco, a variety first grown in the inland Piedmont region of the Virginia-North Carolina border.
Hirschfelder, Arlene B. Encyclopedia of Smoking and Tobacco (Oryx, 1999); very broad topical coverage, worldwide. online
Hirschfelder, Arlene B. Tobacco: Health and Medical Issues Today (Greenwood, 2010) online
Jacobstein, Meyer. The tobacco industry in the United States (1907) online
Kluger, Richard. Ashes to Ashes: America's Hundred-Year Cigarette War (1996), Pulitzer Prize.
Milov, Sarah (2019). The Cigarette: A Political History. Harvard University Press. ISBN978-0674241213.
Nathanson, Constance A. Disease prevention as social change: The state, society, and public health in the United States, France, Great Britain, and Canada (Russell Sage Foundation, 2007), pp 109–159 on tobacco online
Reid, Roddey. Globalizing tobacco control: Anti-smoking campaigns in California, France, and Japan (Indiana University Press, 2005) online
Robert, Joseph C. The Story of Tobacco in America (UNC 1949)
Robert, Joseph Clarke. "The Tobacco Kingdom: Plantation, Market, and Factory in Virginia and North Carolina, 1800-1860 (Duke University Press, 1938).
Tilley, Nannie May The R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company (1985) online
Wagner, Susan. Cigarette country; tobacco in American history and politics (1971) online
Wailoo, Keith. Pushing Cool: Big Tobacco, Racial Marketing, and the Untold Story of the Menthol Cigarette (University of Chicago Press, 2021).
Werner, Carl Avery. Tobaccoland: A book about tobacco; its history, legends, literature, cultivation, social and hygienic influences, commercial development, industrial processes and governmental regulation. (1922) online
Primary sources
Hirschfelder, Arlene B. Tobacco: Health and Medical Issues Today (Greenwood, 2010) online pp 177–224, covers 1929 to 1994.
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