Speaker 1: Welcome and thank you for visiting the Informatorium 56 Podcast Studio.

This location is dedicated to general education and information and features this podcast.

I am Greg Bell and my partner Julia Korony is here with me.

How’s it going today, Julia?

Speaker 2: It’s going well.

I’m excited to learn about today’s topic.

Speaker 1: Yeah, and to start off the show today, I wanted to ask—I’ve actually never asked you this, I’ve known you for quite some time—have you ever smoked a cigarette?

Speaker 2: I have not.

I mean, when I was young, you know, you play around, but I’d say maybe one or two.

Speaker 1: What do you mean when you were young you played around?

Speaker 2: Well, you know, peer pressure and everyone’s smoking and you see your parents smoking and you want to try it.

Speaker 1: Wait, so you actually did smoke a cigarette?

Speaker 2: Yes.

Speaker 1: And how old were you?

Speaker 2: Probably like 13.

Speaker 1: 13? So how did this happen? People came up to you with a cigarette and jammed it in your mouth?

Speaker 2: No, I stole it.

Speaker 1: You stole a cigarette?

Speaker 2: Yes, probably—I don’t remember off of who, probably like my parents or my brother, I don’t remember.

Speaker 1: Wait, so did your parents smoke?

Speaker 2: Yes.

Speaker 1: Okay, so your parents smoked.

Speaker 2: Yeah, my dad was an avid smoker.

Speaker 1: And he smoked cigarettes?

Speaker 2: Yes.

Speaker 1: Okay, so your dad smoked cigarettes and you stole one so you could go smoke it.

Speaker 2: Yes.

Speaker 1: That is amazing.

And how did that go?

Speaker 2: Um, well, I remember learning something about how steam—or hearing it somewhere—that steam like covers or interacts with the smoke and it doesn’t smell.

So I smoked it with the hot water running, I think.

I don’t remember exactly.

But my brother and his friend came home and they were like, “Oh, it smells like smoke.” And his friend was like, “Well, it’s your sister.” My brother was like, “No, no, my sister, she would never.” And just he was so adamant that it wasn’t me.

He was like, “You know, it was probably just the kids in the hallway playing around, you know, the smoke came into the apartment.” And he was just so adamant about it that I was like, “Wow, yeah, he really doesn’t think it was me.” And he apparently knew me better than I knew myself because I am really not a smoker.

I don’t enjoy the taste, I don’t enjoy the smell of the smoke, I don’t like any of it.

Speaker 1: Yeah, but so I mean, were you by yourself? Were you with somebody else?

Speaker 2: No, I was by myself.

Speaker 1: You were by yourself.

So you smoked a cigarette by yourself.

You stole it from your parents.

Speaker 2: Yeah, from someone.

I assume it was my parents or my brother because he also smoked.

Speaker 1: Okay.

And so you had to steal like a lighter?

Speaker 2: No, I mean, we had like matches and stuff.

You know, we had a gas stove that didn’t have the—

Speaker 1: And were you—when you did it, were you just like, did you think like, “Well, you know, Dad does this, I want to see what it’s like”?

Speaker 2: I don’t remember all that.

No.

Speaker 1: Yeah, okay.

But I mean, I think it’s telling that your parents smoked and then, you know, you saw it and then—

Speaker 2: Yeah, my dad was an avid smoker and then he just—he actually quit cold turkey one day because his habit was so bad.

My mom was more of a social smoker.

She smoked with coffee and her friends and, you know, after a meal.

She wasn’t like a super addict.

Speaker 1: Right.

But you saw it and at some point you had to try it.

But I guess your first experience, you had one cigarette and it was so terrible that you never did it again.

Speaker 2: I mean, I didn’t enjoy it before that because, you know, people smoked around me, but I didn’t enjoy the smoke or the smell or, you know, how it stays in your hair and in your clothes.

I hated that.

So, you know, like I was aware of it, but I guess I wanted to try it because so many people were doing it, including my family.

So, right.

Speaker 1: Right.

Yeah, that makes sense.

That is—I mean, that’s pretty much how it goes.

So, usually that’s what happens is, you know, that’s kind of a big part of the story today is, you know, you’re emulating someone and, you know, it’s how you learn to do things.

You see somebody else do it and then, you know, you go do it.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I know you smoke, but I don’t think I know more beyond that.

Like, how did you get sucked into the tobacco world?

Speaker 1: Yeah, sucked in is I guess is the right phrase.

You know what? I believe when I was younger, my—I believe my father smoked a cigar, but no one smoked in my immediate family.

My grandmother did, and she smoked all the time.

But I never had any interest in it until I was much older, which is really strange.

I did think about it a lot while I was, you know, doing research and stuff for the show and trying to get ready for it.

And I think—well, I think it comes down to—there’s really two questions about like, why do people smoke? And the first is like, why do you start out? And the second is why do you keep doing it? And you obviously didn’t get to the second part.

Speaker 2: Well, I mean, in a way I did, is I just never did it because I didn’t like it.

So I answered my own second question by, “Nah, this is not for me.”

Speaker 1: Yeah, well, the thing is it’s so addictive that people actually become addicted really quickly.

One cigarette is not quite enough, but, you know, it’s close.

It’s closer than you would think.

So as far as like keep doing it, it is just a straight addiction.

But the starting out, I—especially being older, I think what happened was—well, it was slow.

I would go out and I would drink, you know, I’d be at a bar and I’d have a couple drinks and then, you know, I would smoke a couple cigarettes.

And I would honestly go months without doing it again.

And then eventually it was down to weeks.

And then I do remember one time I was at home and I actually went out and bought a pack of cigarettes and I smoked them on my porch with a friend.

And I think that is when I was hooked because it wasn’t like I actually actively went out and bought cigarettes.

You know, before that I was like borrowing them from people or I’d buy a pack when I was at a bar or something like that.

But that’s—that was probably the turn.

Speaker 2: And do you remember how old you were?

Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.

I was 27, I think.

Speaker 2: Oh, wow.

So late.

Speaker 1: No, no, I was old.

Yeah, I think I was 27.

Speaker 2: So you skipped that whole peer pressure high school thing, college thing that a lot of kids get—I think a lot—that’s how a lot of kids get addicted.

You skipped all that and you just went straight to “I want to do this on my own terms.”

Speaker 1: Yeah, I don’t think I had peer pressure to smoke.

For me, I think it’s the type of person that I was.

And I think addiction’s really like—well, smoking anyway is like—it’s like a chicken and egg thing.

Because you obviously don’t get addicted without trying them, and you had to try it for some reason.

And I think for me, it was the more of the psychological aspect of it.

And I think that’s the part that I find interesting.

I was socially awkward.

It’s—I was never comfortable when I was out in social situations.

And I had friends, like when I was in high school and stuff, so it’s weird you would think, yeah, maybe they would, you know, I would emulate them, but I guess that’s what I did because nobody smoked.

But after high school and, you know, I went to college and stuff, I didn’t really—I didn’t really make new friends.

And then, you know, I talked to people and I hung out with people, but I was never really close to anybody for a little while there.

And I think that’s where the awkwardness set in.

And then basically you just feel like you don’t know what to do.

So you go out with people, you know, again, you know, you’re getting something to drink, you go out, and you don’t really know what to do with yourself when you’re that type of person.

But when you’re smoking, it’s like this built-in thing for you to do.

You know what I mean? Like you’re sitting there thinking, “Man, I should be doing something.” And when people see you smoking, they’re like, “Well, he’s doing something.” You know, he might be an idiot, but I can see what he’s doing.

And then you feel like there’s this hole filled inside of you.

And I think that’s the type of person that unfortunately is the type of person that still smokes, even knowing how bad things are for—you know, how bad it is to smoke.

But it’s—it’s like a little friend and you can just take it with you and, you know what I mean? It’s just like, “Here’s this—hey, I got my little buddy,” you know what I mean? But I remember once I saw this episode of Frasier where the—I think it was his agent or something, you know, the sitcom Frasier with the guy from Cheers?

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: And she spends like two minutes explaining what it’s like to smoke a cigarette.

And she’s like, “Oh, and then you suck it down into your lungs,” because she’s like trying to quit or something.

And that’s the thing is once you’re addicted, I mean, it is the greatest thing in the history of the world.

That’s why I said like that second half of it, like why you keep smoking is—that kind of answers itself.

It’s just—it feels amazing.

It just locks into the chemicals in your brain and you just—you just love it until you quit.

Speaker 2: Well, it’s a form of self-medication in a way, right?

Speaker 1: Yeah, but as far as the—after you’re addicted, I think all you’re doing is you’re just keeping that feeling.

You know what I mean? You’re just trying to, you know—there are—the medical aspect of it, there are a lot of things—I mean, they’re using it for—they’re trying to create Alzheimer’s treatments.

It helps with memory and stuff like that.

And that is way out of the scope of this.

We’re not going to pretend to be scientists today or anything.

But yeah, that’s definitely an aspect, at least what people claim to be doing.

My anecdotal musings aside, I think my objective answer as to why I smoked and honestly why I think everybody smokes is that it’s—it’s imitation.

It’s just how we learn.

We see something do something—see somebody do something, and if it looks helpful or fun, we try it.

And then like you said, if you do it too much, which isn’t much, it’s super addictive and then you’re hooked.

And after prepping for the show, I still think that’s the right answer.

And anyway, I thought this was a good topic to dive into.

And I said like the human behavior aspect of it and why we do things, obviously I like to think about that and we’ll talk about it.

But we’re also going to go through the history of this and the more concrete things.

And we’re going to do it by asking the question: Why do people use tobacco and how did cigarette usage hit such a peak in the United States by 1965? So let’s hit the rundown and see how to go about this.

Okay, so the rundown for today’s discussion: First, to start out, we will look at some of the facts and figures from the National Institute of Health surrounding the dangers of tobacco.

Then prevalence—I thought it would be good to look at just how prevalent tobacco use and smoking was in the United States in the middle of the 20th century, just to, you know, illustrate how commonplace it was.

Then we’ll dive into the first big part of the story for today, which we’ll call the history of tobacco.

And this is going to cover all the way back to the origins through the early 1900s and the birth of Big Tobacco.

You know, this is going to start with early man’s use of tobacco and then lead through Europe and then more specifically England, because, you know, England is the greatest force obviously in American culture, especially in the beginning and geopolitical culture in the US, until the US becomes the largest producer of tobacco in the world.

And along the way, we’ll look at some of the reasons people used tobacco in these time periods.

Next, we’re going to see something that I honestly did not know about.

I would think maybe a lot of people may be surprised by this, and that is that there’s an era of pushback on tobacco way before I ever heard of there being one.

We’re talking about like the latter half of the 1800s and the early 1900s.

Then the second large part of the story after that is going to be the lead-up to what was essentially a smoking epidemic in the US, which was brought on by two huge factors.

The first is war, which pushed cigarettes on soldiers, and then the second is advertising, which told people to smoke and really gave them smoking role models.

And I think it becomes evident, like I said, that this—you can see that imitation really is a major, major factor, if not the determining factor in people’s decision to smoke.

And then we’ll take some time at the end and look at some principles from science and psychology for some reinforcement from that—from the scientific world.

And then finally see how those same principles are—are I think what led to the inevitable reduction in smoking in the United States.

Speaker 2: Sounds interesting.

Speaker 1: Yeah, it’s a lot of cool stuff in there.

So I’m excited to get started with it.

So let’s start out with what some of the dangers of smoking are.

And as far as being part of our story, I am really not here to demonize smokers.

I mean, I smoked for quite some time.

I still use nicotine products, I use nicotine gum.

I mean, I’m the last person in the world that’s trying to demonize anybody.

But I do just want to be clear that we’re not here to like glorify tobacco in any way.

It’s just more marveling at the story of it.

Also, if there was nothing dangerous about tobacco, obviously there wouldn’t be much of a story.

It wouldn’t be ironic that there were so many users, right? So the only thing I would say is, you know, if you are trying to quit, you know, I feel for you.

I hope—I wish you nothing but the best of luck in trying to complete that.

I started using the gum a long time ago and that’s how I at least stopped smoking.

So, you know, I would, you know, support anybody trying to do that.

But for right now, let’s just look at some of the stats from the National Institute of Health.

So Julia, why don’t you give us some numbers on cigarette and tobacco usage?

Speaker 2: So according to a research report of the National Institute of Health, cigarette smoking harms nearly every organ in the body, and smoking is the leading preventable cause of premature death in the United States.

Although rates of smoking have declined, it is estimated that it leads to about 480,000 deaths yearly.

The overall rates of death from cancer are twice as high among smokers as non-smokers, with heavy smokers having a four times greater risk of death from cancer than non-smokers.

Foremost amongst these cancers caused by tobacco use is lung cancer.

In addition to cancer, cigarette smoking is the most significant risk factor for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, also known as COPD.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that’s the stuff that really is kind of the worst part.

Like, as a former smoker, the worst part of it is it makes you feel like crap.

Like honestly, it’s just the worst thing ever.

Like your whole body is tired, it makes it harder to breathe, like you’re trying to sleep and there’s just—it’s just—that’s—that’s the real demon of it is just how miserable it makes you feel.

I think if it weren’t for all that, I never would have quit.

Speaker 2: No.

I mean, it also substantially increases the risk of heart disease, including stroke, heart attack, vascular disease, and aneurysms.

As for bulk numbers, Surgeon General report indicates that if you include any and all deaths from smoking from 1965 to 2009, smoking caused an estimated 5.8 million cancer deaths, 7 million cardiovascular metabolic disease deaths, and 3.2 million respiratory disease deaths.

Like, those numbers are staggering.

Speaker 1: Yeah, it’s—it’s kind of—you know what the amazing thing is? I thought it would be worse.

Speaker 2: Really? I mean, 5.8 is pretty bad.

Speaker 1: I know, but it’s such a long time period.

And again, this is why I—is it? If you look at the history of the world and the planet—

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: I guess it just—when it—when I saw it, it hit me a little differently.

And like this is actually why I’m doing this because like I said, I don’t want to make it seem like this is in any way supporting tobacco in any way.

But I just—when I saw the numbers, I got to tell you, I thought it was going to be worse.

Now—

Speaker 2: Interesting.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, they do say in that NIH report—actually, I think it’s in a different one—but they say that if you quit smoking by 40 years of age, you can avoid almost all of the smoking-related causes of death and these conditions.

So it’s kind of amazing because even if you quit before 60, you have a lower risk.

But if you quit before 40, I mean, your body’s kind of amazing.

They say that a lot of it just heals up.

Speaker 2: Right.

Regenerates.

And as a small aside, speaking as someone who is a skincare enthusiast, smoking ages you tremendously and how it affects your skin.

It can cause psoriasis and it can affect your skin barrier and it affects the cells that produce collagen.

And so it really—there was a study done on twins and one twin smoked and one didn’t, and just the side-by-sides are just—identical twins—are just remarkable.

Speaker 1: Yeah, it’s weird because a lot—that’s an interesting point because a lot of people act like when they smoke—like I, again, I guess you’re not hanging out with smokers like I used to—but they’ll act like it’s like good for their skin, especially women, which I think like hearkens back to some of the ads that we’re going to talk about later about like how it just has convinced people that this is a thing.

But anyway, so the point is, like I said, we’re not here to like say how great smoking is or anything, but it is a fascinating story.

So let’s look at the other side of it, the people smoking, and get a flavor of just how prevalent it was in—in the United States.

So I think it’s interesting to look at this, like you said, how common tobacco use was in the middle part of the 20th century, just to get a flavor of how serious the issue is.

Also, if you’re younger, you’re just not going to have a concept of this.

You’re not going to understand like what it was like to live where you’re just walking through the mall and people are smoking.

And even if you’re not, it maybe—it’d be a little—just a jog your memory a little bit so you kind of remember what it was like.

Like I said, you weren’t here for this, so, you know, we did find out that you were a smoker, which I think is the big story here.

Speaker 2: I was not a smoker.

Speaker 1: No, you were a smoker.

You were a very brief time smoker.

But what was your perception of how common smoking was in the United States, say from like the 60s, 70s, 80s time period?

Speaker 2: Well, it’s interesting because when I came here, I didn’t think that it was more or less smoking.

I—I thought it was about the same, you know, both my—my parents smoked.

Speaker 1: From your previous country.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: But what year did you get here?

Speaker 2: In ’94.

Speaker 1: In ’94.

And how old were you?

Speaker 2: I was 14.

Speaker 1: So at 14, you’re saying that when you were in Romania, you felt like transitioning here that it was roughly the same thing.

Speaker 2: Yeah, it’s not something—it’s also not something that it was on my mind or something that I thought about, you know, it’s not—

Speaker 1: Yeah.

And honestly, it’s—the peak is—is before that.

So that’s what we’re going to talk about here.

Speaker 2: And what I find more interesting now is that when you see movies and, you know, even TV shows and movies that are trying to be historically accurate and then you see people like smoking on the plane and, you know, or in a hospital, that’s really when it kind of hits me like how things were in the 60s and 70s as compared to now.

Speaker 1: Yeah, and it was crazy.

So let’s actually get into this a little bit because I have a couple stories here that are pretty amazing.

So, first let’s use some stats just to give, you know, that concrete perspective.

In 1965, 42% of adults in the United States smoked.

Speaker 2: Wow.

Speaker 1: It’s staggering.

In 1979, it was 33% and in 1985, it was 30%.

Now keep in mind, in ’65 the population of the country was 190 million, ’79 it’s 220 million, and ’85 it’s 235 million.

So even though those percentages are going down, we’re still looking at roughly 70 to 80 million smokers.

Speaker 2: Right.

So the number kind of stays the same, it’s just the population increases.

Speaker 1: Yeah, it really is exactly.

Yeah.

So, and babies aren’t smoking.

Speaker 2: Right.

Speaker 1: But that’s a good, you know, good way to depict it.

But I think the better thing is always a story to kind of let you know what it’s really like.

And people smoked, I mean they smoked on TV, they smoked on radio, there was radio commercials, which doesn’t even make sense, but um, all three of these were just the home to a massive amount of advertising.

And many of those years they spent more on smoking advertising and cigarette commercials than any other type of advertising in the country.

People smoked at work, they smoked on buses, they smoked on planes, they smoked in public places, and they even smoked in high schools.

Now, now that last one really hits home, you know, they smoked in high schools.

So now you’re probably thinking, you know, you’re hiding in the bathroom like it’s an 80s movie.

Speaker 2: No, I’m thinking the teachers are smoking as he’s teaching a class.

Speaker 1: Oh no, I’m talking about the kids.

Okay.

So that’s what I’m saying, it’s like an 80s movie where the kids like, yo, I don’t need your rules, man, like I’m going to go over here and smoke, you know, that’s not what we’re talking about, okay? That is not at all what we’re talking about.

There is an article in the New York Times from 1977 and it laid out a school atmosphere at New Canaan High School in Connecticut.

So the author sets the scene there and she says, “A few feet away, beyond a table strewn with butts soaked by soda spilled from an overturned Tab can,” Tab by the way, one of the greatest things ever.

Speaker 2: That really paints a picture.

Speaker 1: Yeah, it’s like that old Back to the Future, it’s like, no, can’t buy something you can’t have a Tab.

If you don’t know what Tab is, I mean it was a fantastic soda.

But anyway, “an overturned Tab can, Chris Moore, 14, who has been smoking Marlboros quote ‘seriously for a year’, glanced out the window and says, ‘This place definitely adds to my habit.

I wouldn’t smoke out there, not in that cold.’” So what is he talking about? They have a place for kids to smoke.

Speaker 2: That 14-year-old is like, “Oh, this really affects my habit.”

Speaker 1: No, but they have an actual place for them to smoke.

Right? That’s what he’s saying, like if it was freezing outside, I’m not going to go out there and smoke a cigarette, I’m not crazy.

But they give them a place to smoke.

So then after he says this, you know, “I wouldn’t go out there,” this other kid says, “I would.” And this is a 14-year-old Winston fan who did not want to be identified.

Now the school principal, whose name is Mark Smith, and the superintendent of New Canaan schools, William French, said they did not think the existence of a smoking area within the school encouraged students to smoke or to smoke more.

Apparently they did not talk to Chris Moore.

Um, so French says, “While we’re not in favor of a student smoking, we’re also not in favor of trying to hide the fact.

I think it’s a much more honest situation than forcing smokers to meet at the end of the playing field or to gather secretly in the washroom.”

Smith continues, “To eliminate smoking would really require some really repressive police tactics.

So your choices are boiled down to ignoring it, having the smoking go on in hidden corners, or having some kind of clearly thought-out policy.” I mean this is just, this is just crazy.

Speaker 2: This is, I can see what they’re coming from.

It’s like, they’re still going to smoke so we might as well make it safe for them, I guess.

I don’t know, it’s…

Speaker 1: Yeah, but I just, I love that he’s acting like it’s this draconian policy to not smoke in your high school.

Okay.

Speaker 2: I mean in 1977 or what year was it, probably was.

It’s like, we’re really on the cutting edge of this, we gave them like a smoking area.

Speaker 1: So what he says then, Smith, he says, “One of the most important things we can do is have a good climate for learning and have a certain degree of openness and mutual respect.

Smoking is an individual personal decision and as such it is an accepted part of our society.”

So now this article does not claim that this is like every single high school in America.

I mean anybody who was alive back then knows that’s not the case.

Um, but she does say it wasn’t unusual at all in the area.

So now keep in mind, in 1957 the Surgeon General released a report that smoking caused lung cancer.

Okay.

In 1964 the Surgeon General had a press conference, they had a 400-page report, um, and it produced, uh, it said all the effects of smoking.

So it gives this whole list of things that are bad for you.

It includes lung cancer, coronary artery disease, bronchitis, and emphysema.

In 1965, sales of cigarettes actually went up.

So from ’64 to ’65 they went up.

Speaker 2: So, so all of them missed those memos from the Surgeon General.

Speaker 1: I feel like they didn’t care, or maybe the individuals were smoking more, I’m not sure.

But in the late 1970s, it was estimated that three-quarters of all workplaces still allowed unfettered smoking at work.

I mean people smoked everywhere.

The mall, restaurants, planes, buses, like you said, hospitals…

Speaker 2: The plane thing just gets to me like every single time.

Speaker 1: Yeah, schools, it was just everywhere.

So how did we get here? Why, why are so many people choosing to smoke? Well let’s find out.

And to do this, uh, we’re actually going to start with the history of man and tobacco.

So this is going to be a history of tobacco up to the birth of Big Tobacco in the United States and the beginning of prominent cigarette use, with a look at why people use tobacco and cigarettes.

So like I said, you know, when you’re asking why, I really think that’s two different questions: why you start and why you keep using them.

Speaker 2: Right.

Speaker 1: And why you keep using them, I mean spoiler alert, it’s insanely addictive.

Um, and what I was alluding to earlier when you said about smoking one and I said that’s not quite enough, um, they actually did research in the 70s and found that smoking three or four cigarettes in adolescence made it incredibly likely you would become an addict by adulthood.

Speaker 2: Wow.

Speaker 1: So when I said it wasn’t quite enough but you were close…

Speaker 2: Close but no cigar.

Speaker 1: Yeah, and if you look into the things that they did to make them actually addictive even quicker, when I say them I mean the cigarette companies, that was one of the big things.

And we’re not, like I said, we’re not going to get into all that, but I mean they, they put like damaging additives in them so it would like hurt your throat and get the nicotine into your body faster.

They came up with chemicals, they did all kind of stuff.

Like I said, we’re going to, you know, we’re going to stay away from that stuff today.

I think everybody gets it, you know, cigarettes are addictive.

I’m not going to, you know, spend too much time going over that.

Like I said, to me the more interesting part is why people started smoking.

And like I said, I think it’s just modeled behavior and, you know, we’ll get to that more, but I think things are rarely that simple either.

So, you know, throughout history it’s not like people were like, “Hey, I’m just a really impressionable guy, I smoke because I have the brain power of a parrot.” Um, so we’re going to look at what are the reasons that were given throughout history as to why people smoke, right? So just because I think it’s because they were being modeling behavior, clearly that’s not what they’re saying, you know, there’s context in every age.

So as for that history, we’re going to go all the way back to the beginning where it started in the Americas and then move to where it’s actually cultivated in the Andes and spread throughout the Americas.

So it’s basically throughout the entire continent by the time the Europeans arrive and they become its next target.

And then we’re going to go through Europe, when it heads back to Europe, and eventually we’re going to narrow it down to Britain because Britain brings it over to Virginia and starts growing it.

It’s full circle.

Speaker 2: I was going to say, so it was already here, then it went to Europe and then the British were like, “I got an idea, let’s take it back over here.”

Speaker 1: Well actually, technically they bring stuff from Trinidad, so we’ll get to that.

Um, but just more, I meant more like the process, you know.

But like I said, we’re going to lock onto Britain a little bit then because this story goes worldwide.

I mean obviously it’s everywhere, but because Britain is really the culturally dominant force in the United States, especially in the early going, we’re going to stick with them to try to narrow it down to get to our path to the United States.

And then we’ll get to the 1900s, like I said, where tobacco is that power and they become the largest tobacco producer in the world.

So you’re going to see throughout this, it’s interesting too whether people profess to love or hate the plant initially, it just keeps going.

Um, so let’s start out with the Americas.

Now, this is a long time ago, okay? So we’re not going to have a ton of specifics and we’re not going to get too deep into it.

But there is actually evidence of how and why they used tobacco and it helps to illustrate just how it becomes such a basic part of human culture and how depending when and where Europeans came in contact with these American cultures, how it shapes and colors their interaction with the plant.

So the discovery and origin of tobacco use, uh, is actually goes all the way back 18,000 years.

Speaker 2: Wow.

Speaker 1: Yeah, so apparently they actually did find it when they first came across the land bridge from Asia into what is now Alaska.

Speaker 2: Right.

Speaker 1: But there wasn’t a ton of interest, but so it doesn’t turn into like quite the thing that it will be.

Um, and it turns out there’s actually 64 tobacco plants and we actually smoke two of them and mostly the Nicotiana tabacum.

So that’s the one that mostly we smoke.

So by knowing that, geneticists have found out that the first time tobacco was actually cultivated was in the Peruvian and Ecuadorian Andes.

So that’s 5,000 to 3,000 years BC and then it spreads throughout the Americas.

But that’s a long time ago and that’s how long it’s been a part of our culture.

So it starts out in the south and then travels north.

So we’ll do the same thing, let’s start out in the south.

Speaker 2: So South Americans started with chewing it, um, or rolling it up with salt and putting it in their lips.

They also rubbed it on their bodies, sniffed it, and brewed it into a tea.

Why did they do it? It was actually associated with cleanliness and fertility.

It was used to kill lice and as an insecticide and as a remedy for toothaches.

Also, shamans used it for spiritual journeys, drinking enough tea to the point of almost dying so they could hallucinate and familiarize themselves with surviving death, which in turn they believed gave them power to heal and bless the others.

Speaker 1: Yeah, basically they, they felt like getting close to death, it was a little less black and white for them, so, you know, death and being alive.

So they thought they were taking this spiritual journey where they were learning about life and death and the boundaries and then they could come back and be a shaman and teach other people and help other people in their tribes.

Speaker 2: Right.

And they still do that now with peyote, the shamans of today.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 2: Um, eventually smoking became the most popular form of usage.

Tobacco wrapped in corn husks or leaves made for cigars and cigarettes, some of these being as long as three feet.

In all, they used them for pleasure, medicine, trade, friendship, to treat hunger, and it was basically ubiquitous.

Then it gets to Central America, which covers the Mayans and the Aztecs.

As for the Mayans, here we’re talking about 2000 BC to 900 AD and they mostly smoked it.

Again, it was for ritual and pleasure and they even had two gods that smoked.

Next are the Aztecs who also smoked it for pleasure and spirituality.

They mostly used pipes.

From there it moves to North America.

Native Americans used tobacco, even the plains tribes that didn’t plant crops, they still grew tobacco.

And again, this is also smoking mostly with pipes.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought that was kind of amazing because it’s what, this comes from a book called Tobacco by Ian Gately and what he was, what he said is that even the like the tribes that were hunter-gathering tribes that never settled down to grow crops, they still somehow found a way to grow crops for tobacco so they could have it.

So…

Speaker 2: Right.

Well because they put it in their pipes and did their, you know, peace circles and it was a way to interact with the other tribes.

Speaker 1: It just shows how ubiquitous it is though, it’s, it’s unstoppable.

Speaker 2: So eventually it makes its way north to Canada and Alaska and has this way permeated all of the Americas.

So with tobacco spread through the Americas, um, here come the Europeans.

Speaker 1: Yeah, it’s always a good part of your story when the Europeans show up.

Okay.

As a former smoker and nicotine addict, I looked at this and I felt that it kind of mirrors the process of an individual getting hooked on tobacco, um, even though it’s like this varied group of Europeans that show up in the Americas.

But what I mean is what happens is you go through the process of first you’re uneducated, you don’t know what it is, you don’t understand it.

You saw somebody else do it and it looked cool, so you can’t help trying it.

Then you’re addicted.

You start being condemned for it, but you keep using it anyway, and then you come up with a justification for using it.

And that’s kind of what happens even though, like I said, we’re going to cross different cultures here.

So this starts in 19, excuse me, this starts in 1492 with Columbus, um, who makes it to the islands off of America.

Now, from almost the very beginning, Columbus and his crews learn the pleasure and medicinal properties of tobacco.

Speaker 2: Of course they would.

Speaker 1: Right.

And I say almost because first part of the story, don’t know what it is, there’s actually a story where he landed in the Bahamas, it’s his first stop.

The natives had given him dried tobacco leaves and him and his crew just threw it overboard because they didn’t know what it was.

Speaker 2: I mean that makes sense.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

So, he then leaves and then by October ends up in Cuba.

So he’s still in search of China, of course, you know, Northwest Passage and all that.

Um, natives there he finds in Cuba use what he says is quote “lighted brand made from a kind of plant whose aroma it was their custom to inhale,” which seems to be Europe’s first encounter with the actual usage of tobacco and some sense of what was going on.

Speaker 2: That’s insane to think that before that they didn’t smoke.

Speaker 1: Yeah, this is it and they, we’ll find out they literally didn’t smoke.

Speaker 2: Right.

Speaker 1: So then we have the next step, which is you can’t help trying it.

So two guys on Columbus’s crew actually become the first Europeans to smoke tobacco.

Apparently, like I said, this is the first time that Europeans ever smoked anything.

So they even lacked the vocabulary to describe what they were doing.

So like when you write in the journals, it’s like you have to kind of figure out what they’re talking about because they didn’t say like, “Oh, we just smoked this stuff,” like they didn’t actually know what words to use because they never did it.

And of course they also couldn’t speak to the Native Americans, so they couldn’t explain the concept and they couldn’t be like, “Oh, it has these great spiritual benefits and pleasurable qualities,” so the Europeans don’t even know how to really explain what the point of it is.

Speaker 2: Right.

Like what they’re actually doing.

Speaker 1: Right.

There’s just a huge barrier here.

Now, the next step in my little story was you get immediately addicted.

So the two Europeans who smoked on Columbus’s crew, apparently they actually became like addicted and heavy smokers in the three months that they were there.

Uh, so then comes condemnation.

Uh, the Spanish, they obviously come back and take over these islands, uh, you know, it’s well known what the Spanish did in the Americas.

Notably they first grow to detest smoking.

There’s actually a military governor who refers to it as an evil practice, explaining how natives insert a tube-shaped Y full of smoke into their noses and inhale it until they fall into a drunken slumber.

And you can look these up, these are these pipes that they had that they really had these, they were a Y, they had like two prongs come out the top and they actually jammed them into their noses so they could inhale the smoke.

Speaker 2: Oh.

Speaker 1: Yeah, it’s kind of crazy but like I said, they’re all over the internet, you can see pictures of them.

So religious figures are condemning this usage and stating it’s a way for the natives to communicate with the devil.

Speaker 2: Of course.

Speaker 1: Well there’s actually, yeah, but there’s actually a reason for this.

Apparently in Spanish religious culture, their spiritual leaders see these things as a device of the devil because it linked up with basically what their view of satanic messengers were.

So there was a lot of like art and myth in Spanish religion and some of them had these pictures which, I looked them up, I think this is a little bit of a stretch, but then again I think at the time this is probably what they saw, so I think it is accurate.

Speaker 2: Well it’s putting their own thing on something that they don’t know and understand and they don’t want to spend the time to understand.

They’re just like, “This must be evil.”

Speaker 1: Well they, well they actually thought the Aztecs looked like these satanists.

Right? Like physically.

Okay.

And then to them smoke is also seen as demonic because they associated it with Satan.

So I mean you have to imagine them being brainwashed with this religious imagery and all the, all this doctrine, and then they show up and here are these natives that they don’t understand who are smoking away at these strange pipes and that’s where that comes from.

Now also, anything that was excessive or obsessive indulgent was just considered sin.

So you have that going on too because obviously the natives are really locked into this.

So they start condemning it.

But the fact is once you start condemning something, it means everybody’s using it.

That’s, you know, why else would you be condemning it? So clearly they’ve already got a problem, right? So and there are reports that they just can’t stop using it already, the Spanish after they come in contact with it despite the condemnation.

Then comes the justification.

And by that what happens is tobacco as a medicine comes to be a thing, which you’ll see is one of the reasons people give until we get to modern times.

This new use is actually as a treatment for syphilis.

So it turns out the Spaniards, not being great people, got what they deserved for what they did to the natives, they got syphilis.

So nicotine and tobacco were not considered a cure, but what they said is it made you feel better and suddenly you have the sentiment that tobacco is a medicine.

Right? So you jump into a whole new justification for using it.

Now like I said, they know it’s not a cure, but if you think about it, it’s, it’s easy to get confused between the two because it makes you feel better, right? Like so you feel better when you’re doing it, so and this is a long time ago, it’s not like they had very good medicine, so you can see being like, “Well, I feel better at least.”

So now you have this whole justification of it being a medicine.

So in the early going, what do we have for reasons to smoke? Well, we have pleasure, we have pain relief, we have spiritualism.

But when it gets to the Europeans, interestingly, the sense of spiritualism is not really shared, like they don’t jump onto that justification.

Speaker 2: Right.

Because they actually if anything see it as the opposite.

Speaker 1: Right.

Now while the Spanish have a love-hate relationship with tobacco, other Europeans at least initially aren’t quite as big on exploiting the Americas.

Um, so they’re a little bit more interested in the local customs.

And actually there’s a gentleman named Jacques Cartier, he’s actually from an area which is now France, and he gets to the Americas in 1534 and he explains how the natives grow and dry the leaves and then pulverize it and smoke it in a pipe and claim that it helps their health.

He explains it as a pepper dust.

Again, there’s this like problem with explaining the process because they don’t know the language and they don’t know exactly what’s going on.

But he actually doesn’t explain it in like negative terms.

So this is kind of the first documented case of where it’s just like, “Hey, they’re doing this thing,” you know, not a big deal.

Speaker 2: He’s just describing what he’s seeing them do.

Speaker 1: Exactly.

And another European explains how the first time you try it, it’s hard to endure, but you keep doing it because of the scent.

And I think that we can end the show there because clearly the smell of tobacco is the reason everybody smokes.

I don’t have any idea what he’s talking about that you would keep smoking something for the smell of it.

It smells terrible.

But anyway…

Speaker 2: Maybe that tobacco smelled better, who knows?

Speaker 1: Right.

It could be.

But anyway, that’s, you’re seeing like the trend towards now these later cultures that are showing up, they’re not quite as, they don’t have quite the same animosity toward, toward it.

So.

Now despite this, ironically it is the Spanish religious leaders, total turn of events here, right, who get tobacco locked in being used in the Americas.

It’s kind of amazing.

Uh, so they’re the ones fighting back against it, but it turns out the Roman Catholic clergy were so excited in trying to find a way to communicate with the natives and get them converted that they said it was okay to use snuff and then they actually let them use it as part of mass.

Speaker 2: Wow.

Speaker 1: Or as Gately puts it in his book, he says quote “they adopted the satanic messenger they previously condemned.” And apparently it caught on really well because they actually had to pass a mandate then that tobacco could not be used in mass except by priests.

Speaker 2: Wow.

So they were doing this in South America though, it was the Roman Catholics in South America.

Speaker 1: Yeah, in the Americas where they’re trying to actually get people to join their religion, it was supposed to be like a bridge, right?

Speaker 2: Yeah.

It’s kind of what they did with Christmas.

Speaker 1: It’s kind of, yeah, but it’s so, yeah, but it’s so addictive, it just, it went haywire because again, this is why it just spreads throughout the world.

You, you can’t stop it.

It just keeps going.

So.

Speaker 1: So it spreads through, uh, Europe next.

So let’s see how we get to that point.

Speaker 2: Well, it starts out really slow.

Basically, it just starts with sailors that travel to the New World and come back smokers.

It’s like they went away to college and came back for the summer and were just an addicted mess.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 2: And in the same way, they are not greeted with sympathy, much less admiration.

Speaker 1: Right.

Yeah, like your parents are not thrilled when you get home and they get back to Europe and I guess people are just like, “What is wrong with you people?” So…

Speaker 2: Right.

For example, Rodrigo de Jerez, who was considered the first-ever European smoker, he was actually imprisoned for three years by the Spanish Inquisition to wait for the demonic tendency to leave his body.

Speaker 1: Yeah, that’s amazing.

I wonder if he was actually like sitting there like in withdrawal for just like three years.

He’s like, “No, I still… you can get out now if you want.” He’s like, “No, no, no.

I need tobacco out there for me.

No, there is not a…

I will stay here, just give me a cigar.” Yeah.

Speaker 2: So how does tobacco get through Europe with all this pushback? Amazingly, in the beginning, it’s a decoration.

In the 1550s, the plant is brought to Spain and Portugal as much for the beauty of the leaf as for the rumor of its medical properties, and actually is first used as decoration in palaces.

Speaker 1: Which seems kind of amazing because it’s really not that attractive of a plant.

But in this time period, medicine is still based on humors, so it’s still about like balancing these theorized properties of the body.

But a man named Jean Nicot, which you’ll see his name is N-I-C-O-T, it’s actually where the name nicotine comes from, but is I believe it’s pronounced Jean Nicot.

He gets things moving, okay? So he gets the ball rolling on nicotine really taking over.

He starts studying the plant on diseases and claims it to be a cure and then sends it to Catherine de’ Medici, who’s the Queen of France, who is open to these like fancy new medicines, and the use of snuff just spreads through the court.

Okay, now they call it the Nicotiana herb, named after obviously Nicot.

Now, Nicot claims the herb actually does all these great things for you.

It’s this medicinal, uh, herb.

It does all has all these great properties.

And he actually gets it sent to the Pope who plants it at the Vatican.

So now this thing’s being a decoration at the Vatican.

So from there, it’s off and running, and things really pick up with this doctor in Seville or Sevilla in 1565.

And his name is Nicolas Monardes.

Now, he takes this to a whole other level and he claims that this is a cure for basically anything you can imagine.

Um, and he writes a pamphlet called “Joyful News of Our New Found World” about the virtues of tobacco.

He claims it’s good for the breath of children who ate too much meat, tapeworms, toothaches, tiger bites, I don’t even know how that makes any sense, and poison arrow wounds.

I guess regardless of the poison, it’s just this wonderful cure.

But he also claims it cures animals of diseases.

There’s apparently just no end to this.

He argues also importantly that the satanic issues are not an issue.

He acknowledges that it helps to curb appetite, which is another thing that really makes it through time as a reason that people smoke and use tobacco, and it’s true, it does help you like curb your appetite.

But he says don’t worry about it because that was actually linked to like the satanic stuff that it like curbed your appetite.

He’s like, “No, that’s okay.”

But anyway, this is not some like fly-by-night book.

It gets translated into Latin, English, French, and Italian and it just spreads through Europe.

Now, I have no idea why he did this.

I mean, just no idea.

Um, it’s not even known if this guy actually had any financial interest in tobacco, but he was a respected doctor and it just catches on.

And pretty much overnight, the stigma’s just gone.

The use of tobacco just spreads through Europe and soon they can’t even grow enough.

There’s so much need for it that Spain and Portugal begin importing it from Cuba.

The imported product actually gets the stigma of being even more effective medicinally.

So we have just run the gamut from the natives spreading it through the Americas to the Spanish hating it and thinking it’s demonic to it working its way back to Europe as a decoration before it just takes over as this modern medical miracle.

It just cannot be stopped.

And let’s just reflect on this medical idea for a second.

The fact that this herb has some medicinal property because like I said, one of the things we want to look at is like why people are actually smoking and the reality of the situation.

I mean, you can argue that overall it’s not making you better, right? Like smoking is not good for you.

Like this is not going to make you healthier as a person.

Speaker 2: Right.

Speaker 1: But the thing is, it’s hard to argue that it’s not making you feel good in the short term, right? Like that’s the thing.

It sure it feels like crap when you’re smoking it, but that goes away pretty quick, right? Like once you start smoking it for a little bit, now you’re addicted to it.

And like the things that these people were going through, like I mean, we look at the list, they’re talking about tiger bites and poison arrows and you know what I mean? So in the world they’re living in…

Speaker 2: I mean, what’s happening in Seville that this guy’s like, “Oh, poison arrow, I could do a cure for you”?

Speaker 1: Exactly.

But that’s what I’m saying, like this is a long time ago and it’s like sure it’s not good for you, but I mean how many things can you readily get, light it up, smoke it, it makes you feel something for a minute and it’s easy to do? And then there you are.

You know what I mean? It’s just it’s there’s just not a lot of things like that.

Like they don’t have the medicine we have today.

They don’t have things that make you feel good.

They can’t even get bubblegum.

You know what I mean? It’s just this this thing is just it is kind of like a medical marvel if you look at it through those eyes, I think.

I mean, the part about it being beautiful, like I said, I do not get it at all.

I don’t I guess they just don’t have anything good-looking back then.

Um, but as far as the medicine, something that makes you feel good and doesn’t kill you in 1650, I mean, I think that’s a thing.

I think that is really something.

And that is actually where pirates enter our story.

Speaker 2: Oh, this is exciting.

Speaker 1: Pirates.

You didn’t know there was going to be pirates in this story, right?

Speaker 2: No.

Speaker 1: So actually what we’re going to do is we’re going to turn to England.

This is where we’re going to make the turn towards our our path to the United States and we’re going to go through England and around 1560.

So at the time, the Spanish ruled the seas, right? This is before England began exploring the New World.

Um, the English commonly robbed Spanish galleons and took what they could get, including shipments from the New World.

Uh, just kind of an easier process.

Like England didn’t have the boats and they didn’t have all the know-how to be making that huge trip.

But if you just wait for the Spanish to do it and come back and you knock one off, you get all the stuff, right? I mean, that seemed to make sense.

So that’s what they were doing.

And some of that stuff included tobacco.

So why do they start smoking in England? Well, I think this is a really good example of the role modeling that causes people to smoke.

So just imagine it’s 1500, okay? Spain is the big brother in Europe.

You’re fiddling around town.

There’s no movies, there’s no PlayStation.

If you’re poor, you’re living in a hovel that doesn’t even have windows.

If you’re if you’re rich, you got windows, I guess, but you know, what else do you have, right? Like how fun is this?

And then pirates start returning to England.

They just robbed a Spanish galleon.

They have precious metals, their cool sailor outfits on, you know, like I’m imagining like swords and you know, all this neat stuff and their pirate hats.

And they drift up to the dock like Captain Morgan with their foot perched on the side of the ship and they’re like, “I do believe I’m most awesome pirate in all the world.” And there he is and he’s got like a cigarette hanging out the side of his mouth, right? I mean, come on.

How are you not going to smoke?

This is hero worship.

That’s why England starts smoking.

I mean, that what what could be cooler than this guy, right? And that’s what it is.

It’s about wanting to be something else.

Like this is the hero of the day, you know what I mean? This is like your Tom Brady.

This is your… but except they’re not playing football, they’re these bad dudes that just knock off boats and come home with a bunch of stuff and he’s like smoking a cigarette.

But like what else do you have to emulate? And apparently it is smoking for the first time and it’s just it’s just cool.

Like you know what I mean? Like they just think it’s cool.

So just imagine, you know, the contract Philip Morris would have given to like Francis Drake, right? Like, “Hey, can you be on our billboards?”

Speaker 2: I was going to say, is like Francis Drake part of all this? Because he was like the biggest British pirate, legal pirate.

Speaker 1: Yeah, there’s a bunch of them that invest in trying to get the tobacco going.

We’ll see them in the future.

A lot of the famous people did that.

So… but yeah, and like I said, I’m making that story up.

But what they’re saying is the true part is that they really did see these pirates coming home and they’re smoking and everybody’s like, “Wow, this is awesome,” you know what I mean? So…

But basically, I really think this is the first instance of people just thinking it looks cool and that spreads tobacco.

And soon after, they begin trading with American natives on these trips that they’re making and they start making it to America and they start bringing tobacco back, uh, which is incidentally why they’re more likely to use pipes than cigars, uh, in England.

Like I said, it kind of depended like that’s why I was talking about when I said like your interaction with the Native Americans, like how it goes.

Like the British in the beginning, we all know how things turn out, but they weren’t quite as hostile towards the natives in the beginning, like the people that were a lot of the people that were getting over, at least some of them, you know, they were actually just more interested in in learning what was going on.

So the popularity of smoking in England just becomes out of control, okay? I mean, smoking really catches on in England.

So visitors to the country actually record their visits and they actually comment on how amazing it is of how common it is for people to be smoking.

The one guy says how these smoking spectacles are everywhere, okay? The English are constantly smoking the Nicotiana weed.

I love that this guy turned this got this thing named after him too just by totally making this stuff up.

But there is another guy who was not actually a fan of tobacco and he’s actually complaining, but he points out how a tobacco house is now as ordinary as a tavern and a taphouse.

Even playwright Ben Jonson satirically has one of his characters state, “It is the most sovereign and precious weed that earth ever tendered to the use of man.” So it’s in poetry, it’s in plays, and it infects the culture at large, right?

However, it’s not actually loved by everyone and this is because of the enduring criticism of addiction.

So Francis Bacon notes that once people start using it, they cannot stop.

And I also want to point out that Francis Bacon did not smoke.

And you know who else did not smoke? Shakespeare.

Okay, that’s an aside for fans of that crazy thing about Francis Bacon being Shakespeare.

But anyway, the thing is overall it’s hugely popular, okay? So Francis Bacon aside and Shakespeare aside, uh, you know, it it really catches on in England like with amazing popularity.

And the crazy part of it is is just how expensive it was and still catches on like this.

So yeah, because the English, they’re pretty much smoking for pleasure, right? Like they’re it’s like this if you look at it and you trace it back, right? Like they didn’t have these initial bad interactions with the natives.

They weren’t trying to take over the Americas in the beginning, right? They’re just kind of like, “Hey, what’s going on?”

So like they pick up the pipe, they bring it back and they’re just smoking.

It’s a much more, you know, happy event.

And they just smoke for pleasure.

They don’t latch on to any like cultural or let’s say like spiritual, I should say, religious reasons.

So it’s amazing that even though they don’t have that need for it, they will spend a ton of money on it, okay?

Speaker 2: Well, they look cool.

You know, I mean…

Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.

That’s what they’re trying to do.

They’re trying to be pirates.

It’s a country of pirates.

Okay.

So but much less than any other country, I’m saying they don’t rely on the the medicinal reasons, the spiritual reasons.

The English, they just like it.

Okay.

And they like it so much that they just don’t care how much it costs.

So apparently at the time, a beer cost a penny and a pound of tobacco cost like 400 times that.

I don’t even know how they could afford it.

I’m trying to understand like what’s like I’m looking at the math and being like, “I don’t even get it.” So I guess I mean you’re not buying a pound of it all the time, you’re just maybe you’re just buying like enough to stuff in your pipe.

And that’s one of the things that did come up in uh actually in Gately’s book.

He talks about how the pipes from the time were just tiny, uh, and that would obviously be partly because you didn’t have enough to put in there anyway.

So you’re just using these really small pipes.

So yeah, I guess the dosage is probably the missing part of that equation there.

Speaker 2: So if you’re poor, you’re not smoking.

You’re not looking cool.

Speaker 1: But apparently they did.

Everybody did.

That’s what he’s saying.

Like there’s there’s actually sections on how poor people are somehow still smoking and it’s just like they’re obsessed with it.

So it’s like how are they coming up with this? Well, I guess they’re they’re valuing tobacco over food and everything else.

The result of this is that England is so obsessed with this that they they do try to grow it in England, but it’s not enough and they have to start importing it.

So famous people, like I said, like Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh start pushing for a colony to grow the nation’s own supply and they want to do this in the New World.

Right? So because like they’re obviously losing money on this whole deal.

They can’t make enough at home.

They need more.

It’s way too expensive.

So it’s pinching them on it’s pinching them enough that at least they’re like, “Hey, we gotta figure something out.”

And they do start colonies, but obviously the initial English colonies were not super successful.

Um, some of them, you know, disasters as it were.

But in 1603, the English then get a new king who actually does not like tobacco.

So this guy, King James I, very much opposed to tobacco.

He’s gone back to the old Spanish thing where this is satanic, um, you know, it’s it’s just bad for you.

It’s addictive.

It’s this terrible, terrible thing.

However…

Speaker 2: He missed the cool memo.

Speaker 1: Yeah, he apparently was not big on pirates.

Uh, he’s not a Johnny Depp fan.

But uh the thing is nobody cares about this guy.

Like nobody liked him, so nobody listened to him, right? So he has no effect basically.

I mean, he affects what happens politically, but he doesn’t slow down tobacco at all because he’s not popular and nobody likes him.

Uh, but what he does like is taxing it at an absurd rate, and that’s what he does.

So he in the future, he’s going to make money off of it.

So it’s not like he’s actually trying to stop it in any concrete way as far as I can tell.

What James does do is authorize a new colony in Chesapeake Bay.

So in 1607, Jamestown is founded.

Now, this was not specifically meant to grow tobacco.

But there’s one guy there in this colony who is going to make it happen.

Okay.

Speaker 2: He’s jonesing.

Speaker 1: Yeah, he is actually hell-bent on getting tobacco to grow there because he’s not even supposed to be doing it.

Now, it it kind of seems like you said with all the famous people involved, they’re like probably like, “Hey, you know, buddy, come on, let’s make this happen.”

Speaker 2: Someone gave him some money.

Speaker 1: Yeah, at the same time, like the company line is James saying we’re not here for tobacco and if you actually read the charter, it doesn’t say like, “You know, we’re there to grow tobacco, we’re there to do other things.” Now, it it’s just one guy.

And this guy is James Rolfe.

And in 1612, James Rolfe plants Trinidad tobacco in Virginia.

And this is the same James Rolfe that of course marries Pocahontas.

And Rolfe is just another one of these pivotal figures in the story.

Like I said, he is hell-bent on making this tobacco happen in this British colony.

So again, imagine yourself in the time period.

What a nightmare this is, you know, being in these uh these colonies.

Obviously, I know it’s worse for the Native Americans at the time, but still, these people are what they’re trying to overcome.

They just don’t have the means to do it in most cases.

So there he is in the midst of just the typical horrors of the starvation and the trying to, you know, build your home and, you know, protect your families and try to protect the people around you.

And he gets this tobacco.

I mean, he’s not even supposed to be doing it, but he actually survives.

He actually survives over the course of four years.

And on top of that, he takes what he learns from his new Native American relatives, which I’m sure is a large reason why he survives, and then also what he had learned previously from the Spanish about tobacco.

And he somehow perfects growing and curing techniques for his tobacco.

Speaker 2: Interesting.

But like someone had to have given him money, right? Even though it’s not on the books, “Here’s some money, you’re going over there, make this happen, and when you come back, we’ll get this.”

Speaker 1: I would know specifically, but the thing is he is allowed to be there.

He’s not like he’s going rogue and he like hopped on the boat from behind.

Like he was given the same means to be there as everybody else.

It’s just he started this kind of side project and was like, “Look, this is what we’re doing here.” So but yeah, I’m who knows how many people were helping him because this is really what they wanted to have happen.

So and we’re going to later see that the area of where he’s at in Virginia and North Carolina is actually also the best place to grow tobacco.

So, you know, you have that going for you too.

But he apparently makes quite the product despite all of these odds because he ships this back to England in 1616 and the people who are big in tobacco, they love it.

It’s like a huge hit.

Speaker 2: Well, yeah, because they gave him money to go do it.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I’m saying, but they actually like it.

Like no, but they actually like the flavor of it.

Like it turns out like this is like this is the thing.

Um, but uh jumping ahead, you’ll see that in 1629, they actually send 1.5 million pounds to England.

So it’s just not long before this really takes off.

And unfortunately, we have to do just quickly mention that the reason this all works is unfortunately because of slavery.

That’s where he gets the manpower to be doing this type of thing.

So as much as, you know, it’s interesting to be like, “Hey, he did all this great stuff,” unfortunately the real reason it worked was most kind of awful.

Do want to point that out.

So but this gives England a foothold in the colonies, okay? So tobacco simultaneously helps cement England as the biggest influence on the New World as it eventually grows into what will become the United States, as it cements itself as a major economic force in that new country.

And by 1884, the US is the largest tobacco producer of the world, producing over 400 million pounds per year.

So with tobacco spread through the Americas and through Europe and now back to European America, so to speak, and firmly cementing the economy of what the future United States will be, let’s take a look at the man that turns that tobacco economy into a cigarette economy.

Okay, so how do big tobacco and cigarettes take off in the US?

Like I said, you know, it’s cemented in the American economy.

We have seen many reasons why people smoke: health, enjoyment, fun.

And as a melting pot, the US of course has these.

But what is interesting is it doesn’t really take off in the US until the cigarette.

And we will see there is a new reason people smoke, which is it’s pushed on them through advertising.

So we’ll turn to the late 1800s and early 1900s.

This is when a few things happen.

There’s a new type of tobacco plant, the tobacco refinement processes change, get better, mass production of cheap cigarettes becomes possible, and at the heart of all of this are the Dukes.

Speaker 2: Of Hazzard?

Speaker 1: No.

Well, yes, technically.

Uh, but no, this family who takes all of these advancements and happened to be in the right place at the right time.

Speaker 1: They put them together, they form a huge tobacco cigarette monopoly in the United States and they use all of their power and efficient production to push cigarettes in a whole new way with advertising.

So let’s set the scene of 1800s America tobacco usage.

Speaker 2: So originally cigarettes were harsh and hard to smoke, which is why they weren’t popular.

They were also hand rolled and very expensive to make.

And there’s actually a rather famous Brit that comes to America and writes his recollection of this trip as not, not a good time.

Chewing tobacco dominated American usage in the 1800s to the extent that when Charles Dickens visited the country in 1842, it seems to taint his whole experience.

He said, and I quote, “In all the public places of America, the filthy custom is recognized.” It turns out he went to the US Senate and said that visitors should keep their eyes off the floor and if they drop their purse, not to pick it up with an ungloved hand on any sort of account.

And this illustrates the fact that people weren’t smoking, but also shows us the snobbishness of Dickens.

Speaker 1: Yes.

Well, I mean, I think what he’s saying is like there’s tobacco juice, we’ll call it nicely, all over the place and it’s disgusting.

Speaker 2: Right.

He’s like, in England we smoke it in pipes.

We don’t have this in London or my country home.

Speaker 1: Exactly.

Yeah.

But it must have just been horrifying.

I mean, you know, you see spittoons in the movies and stuff and it’s just, the whole thing’s ridiculously gross.

Speaker 2: It makes me think of baseball players.

Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.

And that’s another form of idolization that the cigarette companies use.

We don’t cover them specifically, but…

Speaker 2: Right.

But anyway, in 1900, only 2% of tobacco users are smokers in the US.

Speaker 1: Right.

Tobacco is not popular overall and smoking is even less popular.

So it is being done, it’s being used, but cigarettes are just not a big thing.

And that is where the Dukes come into the story.

And the Dukes, so this is the Duke family, the one that the university is named after.

They end up eventually donating a ton of money to what the college was called before and it becomes Duke University.

And what we’re going to look at here is the birth of Big Tobacco and basically they spawn it because they’re the ones who create the monopoly and then they seem to make the cigarette a really viable and even dominant product in the United States.

So let’s look at the family themselves.

First, they’re in the right place at the right time to take advantage of this.

So the father, Washington Duke, he actually began trading in tobacco after the Civil War and eventually, well beginning he just has a small family farm, okay, so but he does start curing tobacco and then his family actually travels across the country selling it.

And then later his sons take over, Benjamin and James, and they actually build a processing factory in 1878.

So I mean this is, you know, it’s typical, you know, your parents get you into the business and then you take it off and running.

Next, the tobacco itself.

Like I said, the Dukes are just in the right place.

They’re in North Carolina, which is where the best tobacco can be grown by all accounts.

It’s Piedmont tobacco.

And this was discovered around then and it’s actually a little lighter in color and has a smoother flavor, which is obviously going to be important if you’re trying to smoke it.

So then after that, there’s actually advancements in tobacco processing itself.

So people start curing tobacco with flues in barns.

So basically they just look like these huge barns, but you know, they have a flue in the middle so like the air can get out while the leaves are heated and dried by the heat instead of having all that junk in the tobacco.

Speaker 2: Kind of like a meat smoker back in the day when they would cure meat.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess.

And then the source of the fire also changes.

So previously they were using log fires and somehow there’s a slave named Stephen, that’s all they have for his name, who used charcoal.

And when they cured this Piedmont with that charcoal, it turned from yellow to gold and they actually call it yellow gold.

They also call it bright leaf tobacco, but this is kind of like the best tobacco you’re going to get, at least from the United States, and people really love it.

And this is actually a really enormous advancement as far as cigarettes because it lowers the acid content of the tobacco.

And that makes it much more inhalable, quite frankly.

Speaker 2: So it’s pretty and easy to breathe.

Speaker 1: Yeah, they should put this back in the palaces over in France after they’re done with it.

But yeah, I mean, quite frankly, this is what makes cigarettes a plausible commercial delivery system, right? Like people didn’t really like smoking because it was hard to smoke and then here you go, boom, now you can actually get it down.

And the Dukes just take advantage of all of this.

And by 1881, they begin making cigarettes with it.

Now this is not the only huge development though.

The next big one, and this is enormous, is the cigarette roller.

And that’s first invented in 1876.

Now we alluded to earlier that making cigarettes was hard and the reason it’s such a big deal is because the roller wages were actually 90% of the cost of producing a cigarette.

Speaker 2: Wow.

Speaker 1: Yeah, so it’s people actually, you know, you think of it today as how they make cigars.

Well back then it was just people rolling up cigarettes and you know, people do that for fun and people buy their own tobacco and make their own cigarettes, but you’re trying to make money off of this, it’s not really going to work.

You’re just basically paying people to roll cigarettes all day.

And in response to this and try to deal with it, one of Duke’s competitors, who is Allen and Ginter, that was another tobacco company, they actually create a contest with a prize of about $75,000 to create a reliable cigarette machine.

I say about because for some reason one source said 76 and another said 75 and I found that…

Speaker 2: I mean, a thousand dollars at that time…

Speaker 1: But it’s a lot of money, I just, but I’m not sure which one it was.

But basically this company comes up with this contest and they’re like, hey, we, this is our biggest problem, we’ll give you 75 grand, make a cigarette machine.

Here comes James A.

Bonsack.

He invents one in 1876, okay.

Speaker 2: Did he get the money?

Speaker 1: So he gets plenty of money, don’t worry, James is going to be fine.

But he then improves his invention and in 1880 actually gets a patent for a cigarette machine.

And this actually says tobacco was fed continuously in a strip of paper and it was automatically formed, pasted, closed, and cut to lengths by a rotating cutting knife.

So this is the whole process.

It just does it all by itself.

Speaker 2: That’s crazy.

Speaker 1: But it makes as many cigarettes in a day as 48 people could by hand.

Speaker 2: Wow.

Speaker 1: So it’s 70,000 in a day, 48 people it’s replacing.

So obviously this is an enormous advancement.

Speaker 2: That’s a lot of people out of work.

Speaker 1: Yes, right.

And we’ll see there’s one person who’s actually thrilled about that.

Ginter, not so much.

They actually don’t get the machine.

They don’t give the guy the money.

Nobody knows why.

Like maybe they didn’t want to shell out the 75 grand.

Speaker 2: What? They had this great idea.

You know what? I don’t like it.

Speaker 1: Yeah, they actually renege on using this contest, which is just bizarre because the guy did it, you know what I mean? He came up with this thing.

But now the Dukes on the other hand, they happen to hate labor.

They’ve been at it with their labor for a long time.

They just wish there was no people working there and they’re like, we’re all about this.

Speaker 2: Well, they were slave owners, so…

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, they’re just, right.

And then on top of it, the people they’re buying the tobacco on, they’re not working for them, but it’s just a nasty, nasty system where these people spend their lives growing tobacco and then they basically get whatever they’re willing to give them for it, whatever the purchaser is willing to give them for it.

It’s just a miserable existence.

But the Dukes are just trying to make sure they don’t spend any money they don’t have to.

Right.

They invest heavily in these machines, obviously to reduce labor costs.

And by 1887, they’re manufacturing more cigarettes than any other company in the world.

But this is not the end of their moves to gain dominance.

James Buck Duke, Buck is his nickname, is now leading the company and he’s the one that most of the stories are about.

I mean, he’s the guy that kind of made all this happen, it seems.

And he just wants the entire industry.

He like wants to own the whole industry.

He’s like one of these, you know, monopoly guys, I want to take over this whole industry.

And he does this by buying up competitors and increasing advertising budgets.

So he basically sees how successful advertising was in the past.

There were certain areas where people smoked more, kind of like prehistory market research, so to speak.

And they saw like that it was actually really effective with selling cigarettes and tobacco.

And he actually ends up sponsoring a roller skating team.

He makes cigarette cards with beautiful women on them.

You know, he’s all about trying to get ways to hawk these cigarettes.

In fact, he actually spent 20% of his profit on advertising.

So, you know, this is, he’s not screwing around.

And despite this, the efficiency of his process allows him to lower the price of a pack of 10 cigarettes, so they’re usually 20 but back then it was 10, to a nickel.

And this low cost obviously exponentially increases availability for customers.

So you’re talking before about poor people are struggling to get them, well this is going to be a big help.

Speaker 2: That’s crazy, but I can’t get past the fact that he sponsored a roller skating team.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I don’t really understand how he’s like a roller skating team.

It’s like the late 1800s.

Speaker 2: It’s the late 1800s.

Speaker 1: But I mean, that’s what this is all about, right? It’s like putting the role model out there and it’s like, we don’t really talk about sports in this episode very much, but I mean, that was a huge deal in the 70s and 80s.

Like it was all about getting these guys.

I mean, you used to look at a baseball field and it just, it looked like a war zone.

It looked like it was a dirt bike racing pit or something with all the mounds and hills from all the people spitting all over the field.

But eventually Duke scares the players who are left in the business that he hasn’t already bought up into creating the American Tobacco Company.

And this is where we get into the birth of Big Tobacco.

So he does this in 1890 in North Carolina and he is then made president of the company and essentially basically the president of the monopoly of tobacco and cigarettes in the United States.

He actually tries to go to Europe and do the same thing in Britain, but they kind of like banded together and they formed their own…

Speaker 2: Like, no, no, no, we’ll do our own.

Speaker 1: Yeah, they formed their own monopoly and it’s a whole different thing.

But so he kind of gets locked into here.

But in 1890, I mean, believe me, they spread throughout the world later, but for now he’s locked into here.

In 1890 with this American Tobacco Company, this conglomerate, they then keep buying up stuff and basically they end up owning the entire tobacco industry including 150 factories.

They have the whole business paradigm, they have the rolling, the packaging, the distributing, and even in 1910 they had $350 million of assets.

That’s crazy.

So I mean, they controlled 75 to 90% of cigarette sales between 1890 and 1911.

So just absolute dominance.

So why are people smoking in the US? Well, now it’s cheaper, it’s convenient, and now it’s starting to get advertised to them by way of Buck Duke at the helm of his ATC trying to convince people to start smoking.

Speaker 2: And they have that fancy gold tobacco.

Speaker 1: Yes, and the skating team.

So where we are now is basically the cigarette is a going concern, okay? And it’s obvious things are not going to change for a while.

Smoking tobacco passes chewing tobacco in sales in 1908.

Amazingly though, they’re nowhere near the dominant force that they’re going to become.

Because remember I said 42% of the country smokes in the 60s.

There’s a long road to go.

So tobacco is a force, but it’s in the early stages at the turn of the century.

And what’s interesting is that in this burgeoning period of increased tobacco usage in the US and this push of the Dukes to get everyone to smoke cigarettes, actually a large counter-sentiment forms against smoking and tobacco.

Speaker 2: Hmm, interesting.

But it also makes sense.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

And we’re going actually save that one for the next episode.

So that’s where we’re going to pick up.

We’re going to pick up next time looking at the counter movement and then we’re going to look at how advertising and more turned the tide and leads off to 1965 when we just have a full-blown epidemic.

So as far as the summation, that’s pretty much it for this episode.

You know, we saw the whole thing, we ran the gamut from man first getting to tobacco all the way up to Buck Duke and his company and we will pick it up there next time.

Julia, did you have a big takeaway? Did you have a favorite part of the show?

Speaker 2: Well, I have a few.

The first one is that I had no idea that Duke University was created by tobacco money.

Speaker 1: Oh, really? Yeah.

I mean they call it Tobacco Road, right? That’s why it’s…

Speaker 2: Oh, I didn’t…

Speaker 1: Yeah, the two universities down there.

Anyway.

Speaker 2: Oh, I had no idea.

Speaker 1: No, it’s, yeah.

Story for a different time.

Speaker 2: I really liked learning about how tobacco spread in the Americas and how it was used to promote friendship and trade and spiritual enlightenment.

But probably my biggest takeaway is again how we are basically the same people we were back then.

You know, some doctor’s pamphlet essentially goes viral and boom, everyone is now using tobacco as a medicine.

Speaker 1: Yeah, and the doctor thing is huge because we’ll see that’s one of the things, that’s what I thought was one of the most interesting forms of advertising we’ll talk about next time with the doctors, so…

Speaker 2: Well, it makes me think of modern medicine and how fat was, you know, bad for you by some doctor and then everything was this whole fat-free industry was created and then it turns out that that was not good for your health either.

Speaker 1: Right, because they were just making it worse with sugar and everything else and you know, it’s, but that’s what happens.

You, people lock onto something and then it gets carried away and that’s what we do.

And again, that’s what I’m saying, it all just comes down to role modeling and imitation and that’s really what makes the world go round.

Speaker 2: Right.

And it’s just funny how we haven’t changed, you know, as a people.

Exactly.

Man, and I also keep misspelling the word tobacco, but that’s just me.

Speaker 1: Well, it’s not really a part of your life, so…

I mean, my big takeaway is that I had no idea you were such an avid smoker in your youth.

I mean, I was astounded, just astounded.

Speaker 2: Well, you never asked me about it.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that’s amazing.

I’m glad I did.

Very interesting.

So, but with that, we’re going to wrap it up.

We appreciate your time and if you would like to reach the show, please email us at informatorium56@gmail.com and also of course the sources for this episode will all be up and they’ll be together with the sources for the next episode, which is also on tobacco, at informatorium56.com.

Thank you so much for visiting us here at the Informatorium.

We wish you a happy, healthy, and beautiful journey until we see you again.

Look on the bright side and good luck.

Bye.