50 Fun Facts About Smoking

Archaeological finds suggest humans in the Americas began using tobacco roughly how long ago?

Europeans had never encountered the plant until the voyages to the New World.

Rodrigo de Jerez, a crewman on Columbus's 1492 voyage, was the first European to do what?

Back home in Ayamonte the Inquisition jailed him for it; by his release seven years later the habit had caught on.

Why did the Spanish Inquisition imprison Rodrigo de Jerez?

He was locked up for his 'sinful and infernal' habits.

Nicotiana and nicotine honour which French ambassador who sent tobacco to Paris in 1559?

Botanists were calling the plant Nicotiana by 1570.

Which English king wrote 'A Counterblaste to Tobacco' in 1604?

He backed up his pamphlet with a 4,000 percent tax increase, then set up a royal monopoly in 1624.

By how much did James I raise the tax on tobacco in 1604?

The tax did little to stop the fashion, and the Crown later profited from a monopoly instead.

Which Jamestown settler first raised tobacco successfully as a cash crop, in 1612?

By 1620 the colony was shipping 40,000 pounds of leaf to England, and demand for labour led to the first enslaved Africans arriving in 1619.

In the Thirteen Colonies, tobacco served as what in trade with Native Americans?

The crop was so central that Virginia planters paid debts and even taxes in leaf.

Which Ottoman sultan banned smoking in his empire in 1633?

He was among the first rulers anywhere to attempt a smoking ban.

One of the world's earliest smoking bans, in 1575, forbade tobacco use in any church in which country?

Pope Urban VII followed in 1590 with a ban across all church-owned buildings.

Portuguese sailors introduced tobacco to which country in 1542?

Australia's first tobacco smokers were introduced to it by visiting Indonesian fishermen in the early 18th century.

James Bonsack's 1881 cigarette-rolling machine was how much faster than a human roller?

It made the mass-market cigarette possible and handed a fortune to James Buchanan Duke.

Juan Nepomuceno Adorno, who patented the first cigarette machine in 1847, was from where?

The word cigarette itself had been coined in France by 1830.

In 1890, James Buchanan Duke and four rivals combined to form which giant firm?

It was later broken up as a monopoly, spawning several of the brands still sold today.

Cigarette smoking became the dominant form of tobacco use after roughly what year?

Machine production and wartime rations turned the cigarette from a novelty into the norm.

Which British researcher's 1950 BMJ paper linked smoking to lung cancer?

The British Doctors Study confirmed the finding in 1954.

Scientists in which country first identified a link between smoking and lung cancer in the late 1920s?

That research fed the first anti-tobacco movement, in Nazi Germany.

On what day of the week was the landmark 1964 US Surgeon General's report on smoking released, and why?

The committee had reviewed more than 7,000 scientific papers.

Which US Surgeon General chaired the committee behind the 1964 Smoking and Health report?

The report led to the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act of 1965 and the first pack warnings.

Starting on 2 January 1971, the US banned cigarette advertising in which media?

Congress had passed the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act in April 1970.

US smoking rates fell from 42 percent in 1965 to what by 2006?

Even so, most smokers who say they want to quit fail: only 3 to 5 percent succeed in a given attempt.

Roughly how many chemicals does tobacco smoke contain, according to health authorities?

Sixty-nine of them are known carcinogens and 98 are linked to heart disease.

According to the WHO, how many deaths a year are caused by tobacco?

About 1.3 billion people worldwide use tobacco.

Approximately how many cigarettes are smoked worldwide each year?

Their butts are the most numerically frequent litter on the planet.

What is the most numerically common item of litter in the world?

Most factory-made cigarettes carry a filter, and that is what gets dropped.

Which country in 2004 became the first to completely outlaw the growing, production and sale of tobacco?

The tiny Himalayan kingdom later softened the ban.

Which country was the first to require graphic warnings on cigarette packaging, in 1985?

Australia went further in 2012 with plain, logo-free packs.

Which country introduced the world's first nationwide smoking ban in workplaces and pubs, in 2004?

The whole United Kingdom followed by 2007, with England the last region to comply.

The first building in the world to ban smoking, in 1876, was the Old Government Building in which city?

It was a wooden building, which may explain the caution.

Which US state passed the first law restricting smoking in most public spaces, in 1975?

California's famous bar and restaurant bans came two decades later.

Australia's plain cigarette packs, introduced in December 2012, are what colour?

Research chose Pantone 448 C as the least appealing colour; France and the UK adopted plain packs in 2017.

The 1998 Master Settlement Agreement committed big US tobacco firms to pay states at least how much over 25 years?

It also created the anti-smoking Truth Initiative and its public document archive.

In a 1991 study, six-year-olds matched Joe Camel to cigarettes as often as Mickey Mouse to what?

R. J. Reynolds retired the cartoon dromedary on July 10, 1997.

Marlboro cigarettes take their name from a street in which city?

Philip Morris had a factory on Great Marlborough Street; the brand launched in 1924.

Before the cowboy, what slogan sold Marlboro as a women's cigarette in the 1930s?

The Leo Burnett agency later dropped the copy altogether and built a visual personality for the brand.

In what year did Marlboro become the best-selling tobacco brand in the world?

The brand is made in the US by Philip Morris USA, part of Altria.

R. J. Reynolds launched Camel, an early packaged cigarette, in which year?

'Old Joe', a live circus camel, was driven through towns handing out free packs.

According to the Camel brand's decades-old slogan, what would a smoker do for a Camel?

The brand blends Turkish and Virginia tobaccos.

The Lucky Strike brand began life in 1871 as what kind of product?

The 'It's Toasted' slogan arrived in 1917 to promote the toasting process.

Which industrial designer turned the Lucky Strike pack from green to white in 1942?

The change was sold to the public with the slogan 'Lucky Strike Green has gone to war'.

Which nickname was given to Queen Charlotte, who kept an entire room at Windsor Castle for her snuff?

Napoleon, Lord Nelson, Marie Antoinette and Samuel Johnson were also snuff users.

Among snuff-takers, a sneeze after sniffing is traditionally seen as a sign of what?

By the 18th century snuff was the tobacco product of choice among Europe's elite.

A cigar's ring gauge measures its diameter in what units?

The word cigar comes from the Mayan sikar, 'to smoke rolled tobacco leaves'.

Nicotine has been used since at least 1690 as what?

It belongs to the nightshade family's chemistry and has an elimination half-life of around two hours.

By roughly how much does nicotine replacement therapy increase the chance of quitting successfully?

Nicotine itself is not classified as a carcinogen by the IARC or the US Surgeon General.

World No Tobacco Day, created by WHO member states in 1987, falls on which date?

The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control took effect on 27 February 2005.

On average, a 10 percent rise in cigarette prices cuts consumption by roughly how much?

Youth smoking is more sensitive still, falling about 7 percent for the same price rise.

How long after quitting does the risk of lung cancer drop by half?

The risk begins to fall almost from the first smoke-free day.

The hookah water pipe, now popular across the Middle East, originally came from which country?

It was a symbol of pride for landlords and kings, and works by water filtration and indirect heat.

Which country topped a 2008 ranking of male smoking prevalence, at just over 70 percent?

Indonesia, Belarus and Ukraine followed, all above 63 percent.