Tobacco is perhaps one of the world’s most popular plants, and was first used for smoking around 12 300 years ago, according to archaeologists.
Tobacco is the common name for several plants in the Nicotiana genus, and is generally used to refer to any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. There are more than 70 species, but N. tabacum is the main crop cultivated commercially.
Tobacco contains the highly addictive stimulant alkaloid nicotine.
INITIAL DISCOVERY
According to historians, the indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica and South America were the first to discover tobacco. With Spain’s colonisation of these regions, tobacco was then introduced to Europe, followed by other countries thanks to their colonisers.
Historians also say that before the colonisation of Mesoamerica, eastern North American tribes
