Earliest use of tobacco was 12,300 years ago in North America

 (Monitoring Desk) – The earliest use of tobacco was by the early inhabitants of the interior of North America about 12,300 years ago in the Great Salt Lake Desert in Utah.

Researchers have found four burnt seeds of the wild tobacco plant inside the contents of the hearth, with stone tools and duck bones.

Previous research has documented that the earliest documented use of tobacco came in the form of nicotine residues found in smoking pipes 3,300 years ago in Alabama.

Researchers believe that nomadic hunters at the Utah site smoked or perhaps the fiber peaks of tobacco plants for stimulant properties offered by nicotine. 

After the use of tobacco began among the natives of the New World (America), it spread around the world more than five centuries after the arrival of Europeans.

According to the World Health Organization, tobacco now represents a global public health crisis, with 1.3 billion tobacco users and more than 8 million tobacco-related deaths annually.