Tobacco

Tobacco is a name for any plant of the genus Nicotiana of the Solanaceae family (nightshade family). The chief commercial species, N. tabacum, [Page 1400]is believed native to tropical America, but has been so long cultivated that it is no longer known in the wild. N. rustica, a species producing fast-burning leaves, was the tobacco originally raised in Virginia, but it is now grown chiefly in Turkey, India, and Russia. Tobacco had long been in use as an entheogen in the Americas, but upon the arrival of Europeans in North America it quickly became popularized as a trade item and a widely abused drug. Hence, the term tobacco also refers to the product manufactured from the leaf used in cigars and cigarettes, snuff, pipe tobacco, ...