Cigarette

A cigarette is a product consumed via smoking and manufactured out of cured and finely cut tobacco leaves, which are combined with other additives, then rolled or stuffed into a paper-wrapped cylinder (generally less than 120 mm in length and 10 mm in diameter). more...

Home
Knives, Swords & Blades
Militaria
Science Fiction
Tobacciana
Ashtrays
Cases
Cigar
Cigarette
Camel
Chesterfield
Kool
Lucky Strike
Marlboro
Other Brands
Virginia Slims
Winston
Felts, Silks
Lighters
Match Holders
Other Tobacciana
Papers
Pipes
Rollers, Makers
Signs
Tags
Tins
Tobacco Cards
Trading Cards
Transportation

The cigarette is ignited at one end and allowed to smoulder for the purpose of inhalation of its smoke from the other (usually filtered) end, which is usually inserted in the mouth. They are sometimes smoked with a cigarette holder. The term cigarette, as commonly used, refers to a tobacco cigarette but can apply to similar devices containing other herbs, such as cannabis. They are colloquially known as "cigs", "ciggies", "cancer sticks", "coffin nails", "death sticks", "smokes", "stogies", "squares", and "fags".

Cigarettes are proven to be highly addictive, as well as a cause of multiple types of cancer, heart disease, respiratory disease, circulatory disease and birth defects.

A cigarette is distinguished from a cigar by its smaller size, use of processed leaf, and white paper wrapping. Cigars are typically composed entirely of whole leaf tobacco.

Cigarettes contain nicotine, an addictive stimulant. They deliver smoke to the lungs immediately and produce a rapid psychoactive effect. This aspect of their use is both part of what makes them popular and what makes them highly addictive.

History

The earliest forms of cigarettes that have been attested in Central America around the 9th century in the form of reeds and smoking tubes. The Maya, and later the Aztecs, smoked tobacco and various psychoactive drugs in religious rituals and frequently depicted priests and deities smoking on pottery and temple engravings. The cigarette, and the cigar, were the most common method of smoking in the Caribbean, Mexico and Central and South America until recent times.

Cigarettes were largely unknown in the English-speaking world before the Crimean War, when British soldiers began emulating their Ottoman Turkish comrades, who resorted to rolling their tobacco with newsprint.

The cigarette was named some time in the 18th century: beggars in Seville began to pick from the ground the cigar ends left by the señoritos (rich young men), wrapped the tobacco remains with paper and smoked them. The first attested use in this habit can be seen in three 18th century paintings by Francisco de Goya: La cometa (The kite), La merienda en el Manzanares (Picnic by the river Manzanares) and El juego de la pelota a pala (The ball and paddle game).

In the George Bizet opera Carmen, which was set in Spain in the 1830s, the title character Carmen was at first a worker in a cigarette factory.

Read more at Wikipedia.org