Cigarettes as we know them today had their beginnings with the discovery of the New World in 1492. While Native Americans had been using tobacco in one form or another for many centuries it was the first time that Western explorers had encountered this exotic plant. Soon thereafter, tobacco plantations began to spring up across the American colonies, exporting their crop to the European market. However, due to the lack of m[censored] production of cigarettes, smoking remained relatively uncommon until the turn of the twentieth century.
Throughout the twentieth century smoking became increasingly common, moving from being the preserve of the rich and the privileged to being prolific throughout the lower classes. In the early twentieth century smoking cigarettes was seen as something sophisticated and classy. Of course at this point the health risks of cigarettes were not widely known. In the USA the peak rate of cigarette consumption was reached in 1965, at a time when an estimated 50% of men and 33% of women smoked cigarettes. Since this point the number of cigarettes smoked per year in the Western world has steadily declined. However, in developing countries the number of smokers still continues to climb.
The first research to be conducted which suggested a health risk caused by the smoking of cigarettes was conducted by German scientists under the [censored] regime. This led to the first anti-tobacco movement and a link being drawn between smoking and lung cancer. Throughout the second half of the twentieth century the dangers of smoking began to be widely known and increasingly publicised. Before long, governments began to institute mandatory heath warnings on cigarette packets and in recent years many of these have been accompanied by graphical labels. However, due to the addictive qualities of nicotine which is present within cigarettes many smokers have found the habit difficult to quit.
Due to the increasing awareness of the health risks posed by smoking cigarettes, many businesses and institutions have sought to create an alternative to the traditional cigarette. These alternatives have taken many different forms including the unsuccessful 'cancerless cigarette' but by far the most successful in the late twentieth century was the nicotine patch. These patches slowly release nicotine into the body, substituting for the addictive substance usually found within cigarettes. However, this is where the similarities between smoking a cigarette and using a nicotine patch end.
In recent years a more comprehensive substitution has been developed in the form of electronic cigarettes. E-cigs, as they are also known, produce a similar amount of nicotine to that of traditional cigarettes but with only a slight odour that does not linger and cling to skin and clothes alike. Moreover, E-cigs do not contain the myriad of harmful chemicals found in traditional cigarettes. Unlike other cigarette replacements, however, E-cigs fulfil the smokers need to smoke a cigarette. They offer the smoker an object to hold and from which to inhale just as in a traditional cigarette, but without the extensive dangers.
