Tobacco And Its Effects On The Health Of The United States

â€Å"Loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, and dangerous to the lungs.† says King James of England and Scotland, describing smoking in 1604 (Connolly 13). Tobacco use kills millions of people a year but still only has few legal restrictions. Many argue that the use of tobacco is a right we have in the United States but the harm that it does to the innocent may outweigh those rights. Because the use of tobacco negatively impacts the health of both the users and those around them, all tobacco products and their use should be illegal. Often times in history when a new product is created it is not fully understood in the beginning but as time passes new information surfaces and the development of understanding the†¦show more content†¦As they learned these methods and began smoking it it became a very important part of the Native American culture, using it for religious rituals and Native American diplomacy (12). These rituals continued even as the colonists came to their land and discovered their tobacco, Nicotiana rustica, that they grew and smoked. The colonists took an interest in the tobacco and smoked it themselves but found it to be bitter tasting and weak. Looking to improve the taste of this Native American plant they started to mix it with a sweet tobacco that they had imported. While the Native Americans used tobacco for religious and ritual reasons the colonists in Virginia smoked pipes as a mark of a gentleman (Cordry 3). But the colonists did not keep this plant to themselves, Christop her Columbus introduced tobacco to Europe in the 1490’s, and soon after Jean Nicot introduce tobacco to France, who then nicotine was named after in 1556. Spain, Portugal, and England soon caught on to this trend and began using tobacco in 1565 (Connolly 13). As tobacco made its global rise to fame, many doctors began to use it as a medication for things such as â€Å"griefs† of the stomach, snakebites, toothaches, joint pain, and a dry scalp. William Byrd was one man in particular who tried to promote general wellness to the public, convincing people to follow in his example by hanging tobacco leaves next to their