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A broad-leafed plant of the nightshade family, indigenous to North America, whose dried and cured leaves are often smoked in the form of a cigar or cigarette, or in a smoking pipe. Tobacco is also chewed, "dipped" (placed between the cheek and gum), and consumed as snuff.

Tobacco contains nicotine, a mild stimulant that is highly addictive. All of the mentioned means of consuming tobacco result in the absorbtion of nicotine in varying amounts into the user's bloodstream.

History

Native Americans smoked tobacco before Europeans arrived in America, and early European settlers America adopted the habit and brought it back to Europe with them, where it became hugely popular.

Snuff

"Some it chew, Some it smoke, Some it up the nose do poke!"

Snuff is a generic term for fine-ground smokeless tobacco products. Originally the term referred only to dry snuff, a fine tan dust popular mainly in the eighteenthh century. This is often called "Scotch Snuff", a folk-etymology derivation of the scorching process used to dry the cured tobacco by the factor.

European snuff is intended to be snorted up the nose, and is often scented or mentholated. American snuff is much stronger, and is inteneded to be dipped. It comes in two varieties -- "sweet" and "salty", and popular brands are Tube Rose and Levi Garret. Until the early 20th century, snuff dipping was popular in the United States among rural women, who would often use sweet barkless twigs to apply it to their gums.

The second, and more popular, variety of snuff is moist snuff. This is occasionally referred to as "snoose" derived from the Scandinavian word for snuff, "snus". Like the word, the origins of moist snuff are scandinavian, and the oldest American brands indicate that by their names. Moist snuff is made from fire-cured kentucky burley tobacco, that is ground, sweetened, and aged by the factor. Prominant brands. Moist snuff is always dipped.

TODO:

• more biology of the plant - growing conditions, etc.
• medical - epidemiology of lung cancer, why it's carcinogenic, more on nicotine & addictiveness
• how is it cured/prepared for different uses?
• history - tobacco trade, triangular trade, role in development of the american south
• contemporary politics - anti-tobacco lawsuits & legislation
• find attribution for the snuff poem -- see John Graves's essay on snuff in From a Limestone Ledge
• history of varieties -- in US, colonial orinoco & sweet-scented, plus bright-leaf and white burley