Over the half millennium since Christopher Columbus's first trip to America, smoking, whether addiction fighters want it or not, has become part of the cultural code of humanity. He was almost deified, they fought with him, and the intensity of these polar opinions alone shows the importance of smoking in society.
The attitude towards smoking has never been completely straightforward. Sometimes, he was encouraged, but more often, of course, he was punished for smoking. Everything more or less came to equilibrium in the second half of the 19th - early 20th century. Smokers smoked, non-smokers did not see much of a problem in the smoke. They knew about the dangers of smoking, but they reasonably considered this harm not the most important problem, against the background of millions of deaths in world wars ...
And only in the relatively prosperous years of the second half of the twentieth century it turned out that the human race has no enemy more hated than smoking. This conclusion can be drawn based on an analysis of the actions of various governments in various countries in relation to smoking and smokers. One gets the impression that if the authorities, whether they are right or left, inclined towards nationalism or supranational associations, were not distracted by other problems, the world would have long since witnessed the final solution to the question of smokers.
1. Smoking is definitely harmful. Also, without any conditions, one should agree with the postulate that smoking areas should be separated from the mass of non-smokers. As for the rest, states and public opinion should hardly be like extortionists, scourging smokers with one hand and raking up money received from the exploitation of this habit with the other. The monarchs who punished smoking by death acted more honestly ...
2. Herodotus wrote about a certain herb, which the Celts and Gauls smoked with great pleasure, but this venerable man left us so much evidence that it is not possible to understand their truth even after thousands of years. The official date of the "discovery" of tobacco by Europeans can be considered November 15, 1492. On this day, Christopher Columbus, who discovered America a month ago on his way to India, wrote in his diary that the locals roll the leaves of a plant into a tube, set it on fire from one end and inhale smoke from the other. At least two people from the Columbus expedition - Rodrigo de Jerez and Luis de Torres - began to smoke already in the New World. Taking advantage of the fact that the transportation of tobacco was not yet subject to excise taxes, de Jerez brought the leaves of this plant to Europe. Further, his biography turns into a legend - fellow countrymen, seeing that de Jerez blows smoke from his mouth, considered him a dragon born of the devil. The relevant church authorities were notified of this, and the hapless smoker spent several years in prison.
3. Published statistics on cigarette consumption in different countries of the world can only give a general idea of where people smoke more and where they smoke less. The problem is not that statistics are one of the types of lies, but the differences in laws in different countries. In tiny Andorra, the sale of tobacco products is not subject to excise taxes, so cigarettes are much cheaper there than in neighboring Spain and France. Accordingly, Spaniards and French go to Andorra for cigarettes, raising tobacco consumption in this mini-state to an unimaginable 320 packs per capita per year, counting newborn babies. The picture is the same in the slightly larger Luxembourg. For China, the data in different sources may differ twice - either 200 packs are smoked there a year, or 100. In general, if you do not take into account the dwarf Nauru and Kiribati, residents of the Balkan countries, Greece, the Czech Republic smoke the most. Poland, Belarus, China, Ukraine, Belgium and Denmark. Russia is in the top ten on all the lists, occupying places from 5 to 10. There are about a billion smokers in the world.
4. The accusation of Columbus that he brought a hellish potion to Europe and seduced the inhabitants of the Old World who did not know tobacco before, has no basis. It is a stretch to blame de Jerez for this (de Torres remained in America and was killed by the Indians), but this noble hidalgo also brought only tobacco leaves to Spain. The seeds were the first to be brought either by Gonzalo Oviedo, or by Romano Pano, who also sailed across the ocean with Columbus. True, Oviedo considered tobacco a beautiful ornamental plant, and Pano was sure that tobacco heals wounds, there was no talk of smoking.
5. In France, for more than half a century, tobacco has not been smoked, but exclusively ground into powder and smelled. Moreover, Catherine de Medici taught her son, the future Charles IX, to sniff tobacco as medicine - the prince suffered from severe headaches. Further it is clear: the tobacco dust was nicknamed "Queen's powder" and after a couple of months the whole yard began to sniff tobacco and sneeze. And they began to smoke in France when neither the inspirers of St. Bartholomew's night, nor Charles IX were alive, under Cardinal Richelieu and Louis XIII.
6. For the first time, wrapping finely chopped tobacco in paper began in the 17th century in South America. This is how the characters in several paintings by Francisco Goya smoke. Selling handmade cigarettes began in France in 1832. In 1846 Juan Adorno patented the first cigarette-making machine in Mexico. However, the revolution was made on the Adorno typewriter, and the invention of James Bonsak, made in 1880. The Bonsak typewriter has increased labor productivity in tobacco factories by 100 times. But the mass smoking of precisely manufactured cigarettes began around the 1930s. Prior to that, wealthy people preferred to smoke pipes or cigars, the people, more simply, independently wrapped tobacco in paper, most often in newspaper.
7. In Victorian England, around the time when Sherlock Holmes kept his tobacco in a Persian shoe and smoked yesterday's tobacco leftovers before breakfast, smoking was an indispensable attribute of any male company. Gentlemen in the clubs conversed at special smoking sets. Some of these sets, in addition to cigars, tobacco and cigarettes, contained up to 100 items. In all pubs and taverns, anyone could get a pipe for free. The Tobacco Review reported that in 1892, the average drinking establishment handed out between 11,500 and 14,500 pipes a year.
8. American (originally British) General Israel Putnam (1718 - 1790) is known mainly for his miraculous rescue from the hands of the Indians who were already preparing to burn him, and for the fact that he, it seems, killed the last wolf in Connecticut. Another interesting detail of the biography of a gallant fighter against any enemies usually remains in the shadows. In 1762, British troops sacked Cuba. Putnam's share of the booty was a shipment of Cuban cigars. The brave warrior did not shy away from civilian earnings and owned a tavern in Connecticut. Through her, he sold the aromatic products of the island, earning a fortune. The Yankees unequivocally recognized Cuban cigars as the best, and since then the priority of Cuban cigars has remained undeniable.
9. In Russia, purposeful state work on the cultivation and sale of tobacco began on March 14, 1763. State councilor Grigory Teplov, to whom Empress Catherine II entrusted the care of tobacco, knew his business well, and was a responsible person. On his initiative, tobacco growers not only for the first time were exempted from taxes and duties, but also received bonuses and free seeds. Under Teplov, imported tobacco began to be purchased directly, and not from European intermediaries.
10. Indonesia is one of the world leaders in both the number of smokers and the number of tobacco products sold. However, this huge (Indonesian population - 266 million) market in a matter of years at the end of the twentieth century became inaccessible to the world's tobacco giants. This happened not because of the protectionism of the government, but because of the popularity of its own tobacco blend. Indonesians add shredded cloves to tobacco. This mixture burns with a characteristic crackle, and is called the onomatopoeic word "kretek". The addition of cloves to tobacco has a beneficial effect on the upper respiratory tract. In Indonesia, with its tropical climate, tens of millions of people have breathing problems, which is why kretek has been popular since its invention in 1880. For many years, however, clove-based cigarettes were made entirely by hand, were expensive and could not compete with the mass machine-made production of conventional cigarettes. In 1968, the Indonesian government allowed machine-made kretek production, and the results had to wait only a few years. In 1974 the first automatically made kretek cigarettes were produced. In 1985, the production of clove cigarettes caught up with the production of conventional cigarettes, and now kretek occupies over 90% of the Indonesian tobacco market.
11. In Japan, the production of tobacco products is monopolized by the state-owned company Japan Tobacco. Budgets of all levels are interested in taxes from the sale of cigarettes, therefore, along with the mandatory anti-tobacco propaganda in Japan, cigarette advertising is also allowed, but in a very mild and indirect form. It is not specific brands or brands of tobacco products that are advertised, but “pure smoking” - a controlled process of getting pleasure from smoking, during which the smoker does not cause inconvenience to other people. In particular, in one of the TV spots the hero wants to smoke while waiting for the train at the station. However, sitting on a smoker's bench, he notices that a man sitting on the same bench is eating. The hero immediately puts his cigarettes in his pocket, and lights up only after the neighbor makes it clear that he does not mind. On the Japan Tobacco website, the Spiritual Properties of Tobacco section lists 29 cases of tobacco use: Tobacco of Love, Tobacco of Friendship, Tobacco that brings nature closer, Personal tobacco, Thought tobacco, etc. The sections are designed as dialogues that emphasize that smoking is part of Japanese cultural tradition.
12. The Russian manufacturers of cigarettes and cigarettes were distinguished among the manufacturers of other goods by their special creativity. In this age of mass production, their efforts to make products more or less appropriate for the time and interests of the buyer are especially touching. In 1891, a French squadron entered St. Petersburg, and those wishing to commemorate this visit could purchase “Franco-Russian” cigarettes with a corresponding picture and information. A series of cigarettes were produced by the end of the construction of railways, military victories (Skobelevskie cigarettes) and other significant events.
13. Draconian taxes were one of the reasons for the French Revolution. The French peasant paid on average twice as much taxes as his English counterpart. One of the most significant was the tax on smoking tobacco. After the revolution, it was first canceled and then reintroduced, but on a much smaller scale. In this case, the wheel of history made a complete revolution in just 20 years. Napoleon Bonaparte, who came to power, increased the tobacco tax so much that smokers became the main income item of the French budget.
14. Enough has been written about the famous trip of Peter I to Europe to find out, if desired, what exactly the Russian tsar bought abroad, even in single copies. The source of money for these purchases is less known - Peter quickly spent his money, and already in England he bought everything on credit. But on April 16, 1698, a golden rain fell on the Russian delegation. The tsar signed a monopoly agreement with the Englishman Marquis Carmarthen for the supply of tobacco to Russia for 400,000 silver rubles. Carmarthen paid a large advance, the Russians distributed all the debts and set about new purchases.
15. In the late 19th - early 20th centuries, books on smoking and tobacco were very popular, published in their original forms - a cigarette pack, a cigar box, with a pouch attached, a roll-up pad or even a pipe. Such books are published today, but now they are more collectible curiosities.
16. World cinema superstar Marlene Dietrich so accurately personified the image of a smoking woman-ruler of male feelings that already in 1950, when the actress was 49 years old, she was chosen as the face of the advertising campaign "Lucky Strike". The claim that since her first film success, Dietrich has never been professionally photographed without a cigarette has not yet been refuted.
17. The father of the indirect propaganda of cigarettes in the United States was the nephew of Sigmund Freud. Edward Bernays was born in 1899 and at an early age moved with his parents to the United States. Here he took up the fledgling science of public relations. After joining American Tobacco as a public relations consultant, Bernays took a new approach to product promotion. He proposed to move from “frontal” advertising to promotion as if in passing, by chance. For example, a cigarette had to be advertised not as a quality product that fulfills its function, but as part of one or another image. Bernays also began to publish “independent” articles in the press about the health risks of sugar (cigarettes should replace sweets), about how skinny, slender women get more fat women in the same job (cigarettes help to keep fit), about the benefits of moderation, etc. Noting that women smoke little on the street and in public places in general, Bernays organized a procession of young women with cigarettes in New York on Easter 1929. Moreover, the procession did not look organized. Bernays also wrote a whole treatise on the role of cigarettes in cinema and sent it to major producers. Whether any checks were attached to Bernays's work is unknown, but in the 1940s, the cigarette became an indispensable attribute of the protagonist of any film.
18. Press reports that an American with lung cancer has sued billions of dollars from a tobacco company should be viewed with skepticism. Such reports usually arrive after the end of the first instance courts. There, the plaintiff can actually get a verdict that suits him from the jury. However, the litigation does not end there - higher courts often review decisions or significantly reduce the amount of compensation. The plaintiff and the company can reach an out-of-court settlement, after which the plaintiff also receives money, but rather insignificant. Typical examples of a reduction in the amount from several tens of billions of dollars to millions or even hundreds of thousands. In reality, billions of dollars in fines are paid in “NN state versus XX company” cases, but such fines are a form of additional tax paid by tobacco companies.
19. Russian history of tobacco begins on August 24, 1553. On this momentous day, the ship "Edward Bonaventura", battered by a storm, proudly tried to enter the Dvinsky Bay (now it is the Murmansk region) under the command of Richard Chancellor. The Russians were surprised at such a large ship. Their surprise intensified when they learned that the Germans (and all foreigners in Russia until about the 18th century were Germans - they were dumb, they didn't know Russian) were sailing to India. Little by little, all the misunderstandings were cleared up, messengers were sent to Moscow, and they began to while away the time talking. Among the goods for India, Chancellor also had American tobacco, which the Russians enjoyed tasting. At the same time, they had not yet smoked in England - only in 1586 tobacco was brought there not by anyone, but by Sir Francis Drake.
20. The hero of the story of the famous English writer Somerset Maugham "The Clerk" was fired from St. Peter's Church for not knowing literacy.It seemed that his life had collapsed - the clerk was a highly respected person in the hierarchy of the Anglican Church, and the deprivation of such a place in Victorian England meant a serious lowering of the social status so valued by the British. Maugham's hero, leaving the church, decided to smoke (being a clerk, he naturally did not succumb to this vice). Not seeing a tobacco shop in sight, he decided to open it himself. Having successfully started a trade, the former clerk got busy walking around London in search of streets without tobacco shops, and immediately filled the vacuum. In the end, he became the owner of several dozen shops and the owner of a large bank account. The manager offered him to place money on a profitable deposit, but the newly minted merchant refused - he could not read. "Who would you be if you could read?" - exclaimed the manager. “I would be a clerk of St. Peter’s Church,” the prosperous tobacco dealer replied.
21. Modern tobacco factories are highly mechanized. Some semblance of independent work is performed only by forklift drivers, who install boxes of tobacco on the conveyor - right away, the tobacco brought into business “from the wheels” cannot be done, it must lie down. Therefore, usually a tobacco factory has an impressive warehouse with boxes containing pressed leaf tobacco. After installing the box on the conveyor, all work from dividing tobacco sheets into pulp and veins to packing cigarette blocks into boxes is performed exclusively by machines.
22. Prominent Russian biologist and breeder Ivan Michurin was a heavy smoker. He was extremely unpretentious in everyday life - somehow the personal envoy of Nicholas II, because of his plain clothes, mistook him for the guard of the Michurinsky garden. But Michurin preferred high-quality tobacco. In the years of post-revolutionary devastation, there were no special problems with tobacco - there were huge reserves in warehouses. In the late 1920s, it was possible to restore the production of cigarettes and cigarettes, but only quantitatively - there was practically no quality tobacco. Michurin took up the cultivation of tobacco in places where he had not grown before, and achieved success. This is stated in several articles that Michurin devoted to the regionalization and cultivation of tobacco varieties. In addition, Michurin came up with an original tobacco cutting machine, which was very popular - peasant Russia for the most part smoked samosad, which had to be cut independently.
