Some tobacco history

In 1492, Columbus discovered the natives of the West Indies "drinking smoke." Tobacco was unknown in Europe until Columbus brought back samples and plants from the New World. Modern tobaccos are the species nicotiana tabacam, which was not grown north of Mexico until the English colonists introduced it into Virginia. A hardier species, nicotiana rustica, was grown by the tribes of the eastern United States and Canada.

In the pre-Columbian period, tobacco was consumed from Quebec in eastern Canada south to southern Argentina, and on the Pacific coast north to the Aleutian Islands. There were five principal methods of tobacco consumption: smoking, chewing, drinking, snuff and enemas.

The first descriptions of syphilis in Europe appeared at about the time Columbus returned, raising the unproven theory that Columbus introduced syphilis as well as tobacco from the New World.

Within 150 years of Columbus's finding "strange leaves" in the New World, tobacco was being used in every part of the earth.