Hartsville native and President of Gold Leaf Seed Co. Marion Hawkins gave the Hartsville Kiwanis a lesson in the history of the tobacco industry and his company at the group’s weekly meeting on Thursday at the Hartsville Country Club. During colonial days, Hawkins said, tobacco was one of the nation’s biggest exports. In the mid 1800s, tobacco was booming when Duke Co. in Durham began making cigarettes. Since early 1900s it’s grown in lowe ... Jump to full article >>

A cigar smoked by Prime Minister Winston Churchill as he planned D-Day has been discovered in a small market village – after being hidden for over 50 years. The cigar has now been valued at £800 by an expert during the filming of the Antiques Roadshow. Student Christian Williams, 33, was given the cigar when he was just 12 by his grandad Ronald Williams, a WWII veteran. At over six inches long the cigar has never been touched by its owne ... Jump to full article >>

For better or worse (health wise and economically-speaking somewhat), the Philippines has had a long affair with the tobacco plant. Today, the negative health effects of tobacco and cigarette smoking are well understood; so we hope that the affair is finally coming to an end. Beyond personal health, cigarettes pose a public health and garbage problem. Each day we lose count of how many people we see tossing their cigarettes on the streets and s ... Jump to full article >>

What was all the fuss about? Smoking was definitely the thing to do if you grew up in the ’50s. My parents smoked. The movie stars wielded their cigarettes like weapons, providing an effect that was as glamorous as it was powerful. I was 9 when my father gave me the responsibility of buying his cigarettes. After carefully explaining how to retrieve them from the machine, he entrusted me with a quarter, saying I could keep the change! They ... Jump to full article >>

A handful of players on both the New York Yankees and the Philadelphia Phillies have played this year’s World Series with a wad of tobacco in their mouths. Have baseball players always used smokeless tobacco? Yes. In the mid-19th century—baseball’s formative years—chewing tobacco was enormously popular in the United States. Early ballplayers likely chewed tobacco for the same reasons as other American men, but they soon discover ... Jump to full article >>

In a case with potentially major implications for scholars and publishers, a Stanford University professor who often serves as an expert witness against tobacco companies is fighting an effort by lawyers for the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company to obtain the manuscript of his unpublished and unfinished book on that industry. A Florida state court judge has already authorized the tobacco company’s lawyers to issue a subpoena requiring Robert ... Jump to full article >>

Starting in the early 1990s, three large American industry groups set to work on strategies to cast doubt on the science of climate change. Even though the oil industry’s own scientists had declared, as early as 1995, that human-induced climate change was undeniable, the American Petroleum Institute, the Western Fuels Association (a coal-fired electrical industry consortium) and a Philip Morris-sponsored anti-science group called TASSC all dra ... Jump to full article >>

Where do its millions go? Less to ads and grants, more to aggressive investments, big salaries … and the CEO’s house. The American Legacy Foundation is a rare example of a public charity being born with a silver spoon. Even before it began operating in 1999, the foundation was bequeathed more than $1 billion from the settlement of a massive lawsuit brought by the attorneys general of 46 states against the country’s major tobacco companies ... Jump to full article >>

Most Americans, and I am sure the chief executive officers of the major tobacco manufacturing plants, knew that smoking was not good for your health more than 50 years ago. I can remember hearing the comment, “Here’s another nail in your coffin,” as someone handed you a cigarette, many years ago. In 1947, 62 years ago, Merle Travis wrote a song that was adopted by Tex Williams. Here are some of the lyrics: “Smoke, smoke, ... Jump to full article >>

The onset of slavery in America can be directly linked to the beginning of tobacco production in this country. Though many factors contributed to slavery in the New World, tobacco was the main reason that slavery first flourished as an industry. By the mid-1600s the slave trade flourished with established routes connecting North America, Africa and the West Indies. Manufactured goods were traded for African Natives; the African Natives were tak ... Jump to full article >>