Issue 1 Article 5

The peoples of the pre-Columbian Americas first used tobacco. Native Americans apparently cultivated the plant and smoked it in pipes for medicinal and ceremonial purposes. Christopher Columbus brought a few tobacco leaves and seeds with him back to Europe, and diplomats like France's Jean Nicot for whom nicotine is named and began to popularize its use. By 1944, the American Cancer Society began to warn about possible ill effects of tobacco.Today, state laws and legal precedents hold manufacturers more liable for the effects of their products. And the old legal defense of "contributing negligence" -- which prevented lawsuits by people with some measure of responsibility for their own condition -- is no longer viable in most jurisdictions.