tobacco was first cultivated in the Peruvian and Ecuadorian Andes, from where it spread to the north and south until it covers most of the Americas. After "discovered" by Christopher Columbus, the addictive properties of the plant so that the world was easily conquered, too.
The importance of Columbus among the many navigators and explorers of the Age of Discovery (the two centuries from 1400 to early 1600) is such a summary of its profile and achievement is justified here. Born in 1450 in the Republic of Genoa, Italy, Columbus was an Italian explorer, navigator and colonizer. In 1485, he presented his plan to open a route to the west to Asia (and asking the support of the company) at the court of Portugal. After being rejected (in Portugal), he was successively pressures bourgeois of Genoa and Venice, and Henry VII of England with the same request, but was refused by all. He then approached Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, who, through their marriage had united many kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsula and were in power together. Finally, after endless petitions and two years of negotiations, he succeeded in January 1492 Ferdinand II would support him.
According to historian Edmund Morgan, Columbus had read a lot about astronomy, geography and history, including the works of Ptolemy, the travels of Marco Polo and Sir John Mandeville and Pliny natural History . He knew that the earth was spherical and was convinced he would be able to reach India by sailing west.
His travels have had a huge impact on the development of the Western world and led to the first European contact period with the Americas. It also resulted in the exploration, conquest and an exchange of goods and products that changed the lives, lifestyles and habits in the Old and the New World. The cultures of that region that were introduced in Europe included corn, potato, tomato, pepper, peppers, cassava, pumpkins, rice, barley, oats, coffee, cocoa, sugar cane, citrus, melons, Kentucky bluegrass and peanuts, while the subsequent waves of settlers brought wheat, radishes, chickpeas, melons, horses, cattle, pigs, sheep, goats and chickens from Europe.
And tobacco was, of course, another product which has traveled from the Americas to Europe.
From a patriarchal point of view, the poor chaps addicted to smoking had clearly been seduced. Lads, listen, be it an apple or dried tobacco leaves, always ask first; Why?
The smoke would have frightened some of its neighbors, leading the Spanish Inquisition imprison him for his use of the "weed of the devil", making Jerez the first victim of the anti-smoking laws and its neighbors the first passive smokers contesting second smoke. He spent seven years in prison should be released when smoking had become an accepted activity in Spain.
The main reason for the growing popularity of tobacco in Europe was its supposed healing properties. Europeans believed that tobacco could cure almost anything, from bad breath to cancer. In 1571, a Spanish doctor Nicolas Monardes, wrote a book claiming that tobacco could cure 36 health problems. During that time, tobacco was so popular that it was frequently used as money. However, many people have begun to realize that smoking was dangerous side effects. In 1610, Sir Francis Bacon, for example, noted that trying to quit the habit was really difficult.
And gradually more and more scientists have begun to understand the chemicals in tobacco, and hazardous health effects of smoking. During the 1950s, the evidence is surfacing that smoking is linked to lung cancer. The tobacco industry, however, has denied the health risks and the promotion of new products "safer" such as those with less tar and filtered cigarettes.
During the 1980s, smoking has become politically incorrect, and smoking was banned not only in many public places in the United States but also on all domestic flights that last less than two hours. This, you may recall, was the decade of President Ronald Reagan. But in films and television for years, he seemed to have had quite a different opinion about the accuracy, and with hindsight, will regret this announcement.
In Indonesia tobacco was introduced by the Dutch in the mid-19 e century. And now, in 2014, smoking is still the growth of industry, there are five or six decades in Europe and the United States, although more and more offices and shopping malls are banning smoking in their premises. Many restaurants, however, are lagging behind and at best have ineffectively smokeless partitioned sections only.
No wonder then that the National Social Economy Survey shows that poor households spend 19% of their income on food basis and 11% on tobacco, but only 2% for education and 3% on health care.
Even more worrying is the rate constant increase in smoking among smokers of children (aged five to nine). Which has increased six times since 1995 to 426,000
Government revenue from tobacco tax in 2011 was approximately $ 7.6 billion, more than double the figure of 2005. Together with millions of jobs in the cultivation and processing of tobacco, which clearly affects the government on tobacco and smoking policy, actively restrict smoking would reduce revenue and increase the number of under and unemployed.
Accordingly, the powerful tobacco industry in Indonesia can conclude that the US $ 235 million spent on advertising in 2011 was well spent, and look forward with confidence to a few years' Now, as a crackdown on the industry is highly unlikely.