I have been experimenting with growing and curing tobacco for three years, with mixed success. In a tobacco growing forum, one post highly recommended the book
Tobacco Culture, by Bill Drake. Drake was the original founder of American Spirit Tobacco, but was eventually pushed out when the company grew and he protested some policies that were introduced by the
suits. The company's original mission was to employ Native Americans to produce natural heirloom ceremonial tobaccos, organically, as had been practiced for centuries, on their own land, to provide them a good source of honest income - and to make available to American smokers for the first time, real tobacco, not the watered down product that is now available, which only delivers enough nicotine to keep one
"addicted", but not the level of enjoyment that required much less consumption.
I ordered this book and am currently about 3/4 of the way through. Last night I began the part about manufactured cigarettes and the US tobacco companies. I felt the need to post this now, since what was revealed in this book was so much worse than what we already know to be true. In essence, if you are smoking cigarettes manufactured in the US...
STOP IMMEDIATELY!!!
Most of the true leaf tobacco grown in the US, where there are regulations in place to restrict the types and quantities of insecticide, herbicide and fertilizers used, is shipped to Europe. This stuff is still toxic, but clean enough for the much higher standards in Europe. Most of what is used to manufacture US cigarettes is not leaf at all. It is a synthetic called "sheet" tobacco. This is made from 3rd world imported scrap (stalks, stems, roots and moldy waste), along with waste product from the wood pulp processing industry. It has very little, if any, tobacco leaf content. The imported tobacco scrap material is heavily tainted with highly carcinogenic insecticides which are banned for any application in the US. There is a loophole in the laws which control the efficacy of imported leaf tobacco, which the tobacco companies exploit. There is no inspection or regulation of tobacco scrap whatsoever, and from this is made your Winstons, Marlboros, etc. This is not to mention the highly questionable ingredients added in the making of the sheet itself. There is no research extant to indicate what these chemicals and toxins do in combination when burned and inhaled, and there is certainly no motivation from the tobacco industry to find out.
From the book:
Many people aren't aware that tobacco products, including cigarettes, cannot be regulated by the US government, or the states, whose Pure Food, Drug and Cosmetic laws are carefully modeled on the federal law, which takes precedence. This means that the health authorities of your state have no authority at all to regulate tobacco products even if you demonstrate to them that there are banned pesticides in those products which are known human carcinogens in the dosages experienced by smokers and their families, and by the public in second-hand smoke. I know this because I live in Texas and I've tried it in testimony before the Texas Department of Health, the Texas Legislature, the Texas Attorney General - the states have no right to regulate cigarettes.
The fact that tobacco products, including some cigarette brands, ceased to be actual "tobacco" products many years ago does not seem to affect their continued exemption, which was based on the original argument that tobacco was neither a food, nor a drug, nor a cosmetic and therefore should be - and was - made exempt from regulation under the Act. They maintain this image with great care, because it enables them to continue to operate under a cloak of secrecy.
[...]
Many of the pesticides contaminating American tobacco products have never been registered in the US, because so few US cigarette brands actually contain American tobacco.. When US brands of cigarettes claim to contain Virginia tobacco, they imply that it has been grown in Virginia, but Virginia-type tobacco is grown worldwide from Bangladesh to Zimbabwe to China, and becomes US cigarettes only after being drenched with unregulated mixtures of insecticides and fungicides in its tropical growing environment. While the leaf portions of this so-called Virginia tobacco must conform to US pesticide regulations, the stems, stalks and trash from processing don't, and many of the chemicals used on tobacco translocate to the stems, stalks and roots.
Drake goes on in great detail to list the toxins present in US manufactured tobacco products. He presents the findings of studies, with regard to each, and their FDA, USDA and other regulatory agency rulings regarding them. He also graphically describes the process of making the synthetic sheet tobacco. It is not comforting information. Winston was the first to employ this, but due to the legal secrecy that protects the tobacco industry from transparency, little is known about which other companies use this process. I think that it would be safe to presume that all of the majors are complicit as profitability is their primary corporate goal.
Drake then relates the legal actions that have been employed against the big cigarette manufacturers, and why they have been only marginally successful. His advice to attorneys representing plaintiffs in these cases has yet to be used in any major class action suits. So far, legal strategies have only gone after nicotine's role in disease, not the adjuvants. This is easily countered by the defendant's legal teams.
There is so much more of value in this book, particularly for those wishing to embark on the growing of their own tobacco. Had I read it three years ago, I would be much further along in my own project. I have been attempting to emulate the flavor of commercially available organic and additive free tobaccos, which are essentially just cleaner, higher quality versions of what are already available, when the more powerfully effective nicotine delivery varieties make much more common sense to pursue.
A great deal of the book is devoted to retelling the oral history of the Native American's growing, curing and smoking practices. Of interest is one story of how for ceremonial smoke, the most powerful part of an already potent strain, was processed by a tribe of the plains. The bud of the blooming flower was harvested with the flower portion removed, before seed had begun to grow inside the bud. It was slowly and carefully dried, then a stick with (good old saturated) buffalo fat was heated in the fire. this oil was lightly applied to the dried bud and allowed to be absorbed. If too much of this bud was consumed, the smoker would keel over, much to the merriment of the others in attendance. The guilty party was chided for his lack of restraint.
I cannot stress strongly enough the value of this book and the wisdom it contains for both growers, and those who only enjoy smoking tobacco. It covers almost every aspect of tobacco, and Drake is a very engaging writer who knows when to get out of the way and let the oral histories on the Indians, and the excerpts from the old published professionals relate their observations and lessons.
http://www.amazon.com/Cultivators-Handbook-Natural-Tobacco-Second/dp/1451514646/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1308823265&sr=1-1
Be sure to read the reviews. They are quite good. OK, time for a smoke.
