Tobacco is a plant native to the Americas, and Native Americans were the first to use it. In addition to smoking it, they used it in smokeless forms, mainly as a chewing material and in teas and other drinks. The ash was used in rituals throughout the Americas and the Caribbean. Tobacco was used along with many other plants for both ritual and medicinal purposes.

Christopher Columbus and other explorers brought tobacco to Europe, where it was taken up for recreation in both smoked form (cigars and pipes) and smokeless. Smokeless tobacco (ST) became popular in British society in the practice called sniffing. British colonists in the Americas preferred to chew tobacco or use snuff. In the 1800s chewing tobacco was widespread in the United States. This use decreased when the spitting that resulted (into spittoons or cuspidors or wherever the spit fell) was linked to...