Big Tobacco

Abstract

This chapter reviews the uneven, cynical, and outright hypocritical evolution of tobacco as a legal but still addictive and harmful drug. It talks about citizens and politicians that have combatted the tobacco scourge to provide valuable context for other campaigns against other substances. It also investigates Big Tobacco's legacy as a once wildly successful corporate special interest in an industry dedicated to a single product that killed many of its users. The chapter looks at medical research over the previous two decades that found correlations between tobacco and low birth weight, emphysema, and heart disease, to name some of the more fatal maladies. It cites that scientists demonstrated that cigarettes were much more addictive and dangerous than cigars, pointing out the first reported connection between smoking and lung cancer in 1939.