Smoking In America Essay

When Christopher Columbus first came to the Americas, his crew members were introduced to smoking by the indigenous people who gave them the dried leaves as a present. “Tobacco [can] be chewed, drunk as tea, inhaled as powder (snuff), inserted as a liquid enema and consumed as jelly, but it was smoking, the burning of the herb to produce smoke, that quickly became part of a priestly healing ritual, both to diagnose and cure illness, as well as to drive out the evil spirits that had supposedly caused it…smoking was a cure, but it soon became a passion” (Gilman 9).
Once it was introduced to the Europeans, this passion turned into an addiction. “Smoking is [now] the leading cause of preventable death, associated with about 6 million deaths worldwide
These numbers have been on a decline since 2005 when 21 of every 100 adults (20.9%) smoked. The 2015 data showed about 15 of every 100 adults (15.1%) smoke. The actions taken by the U.S. government to decrease the number of adults from starting to smoke and to encourage current smokers to quit, have been helpful. However, these numbers are still very high. The U.S. is ranked third in the world for consuming the most cigarettes per person per year, behind Russia and
A year later, the first act regarding cigarettes was put into place. The Federal Labelling and Advertising Act required cigarette packages to have a health warning, and reports needed to be submitted to Congress annually on the advertising and labelling practices as well as health consequences of smoking. By the 1970’s a new act prohibited cigarette advertising on T.V. and radio. In 1988, the Federal Aviation Act gained an amendment that prohibited smoking on domestic flights 2 hours or less. Shortly afterwards, in 1992, laws were enacted prohibiting the sale and distribution of tobacco products to minors; these laws were finalized in 1996. The year 2000 brought about the banning of smoking on all flights between the United States and other