Tobacco.org

Regulating Tobacco Industry a Recent Concept  

Tobacco began spreading around the world after Christopher Columbus first encountered Native Americans, who smoked and chewed the leaf. Not until the 20th century, though, did cigarettes became the main form of tobacco consumption -- and the most lethal legal products on the market. . . .

"We had hearings on tobacco for decades," Mr. Waxman, chief sponsor of the House version of the tobacco legislation, said in an interview Wednesday. "But it was not until 1994, after tobacco executives testified and lied to us, saying cigarettes weren't harmful, nicotine wasn't addictive, they didn't manipulate the nicotine and of course they didn't target kids -- it wasn't until after that that we started getting the inside information from tobacco companies and found the opposite was true."

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