The use of tobacco has been traded to the peoples of North America, who were growing and using tobacco by the time Europeans had begun exploring the continent in the sixteenth century. By the 1800s the United States had become the heaviest per capita growers and users of tobacco. Although tobacco is a big trading product most Americans who used it smoked it in a pipe or chewed it. A domestic commercial industry had not developed yet and brand name goods had not been created. .
In 1996 the U.S tobacco industry was an approximately 46 billion-dollar industry. Cigarettes accounted for nearly 95% of total sales that year; the remaining 5 percent were for cigars, moist smokeless tobacco, chewing tobacco, and snuff. It is estimated that U.S cigarette consumption declined by about 2 percent in 1997, falling to aproximately23.8 billion packs. Higher selling prices and growing restrictions on where people can smoke have dampened consumption. These factors also have reduced the demand for smoking tobacco used in pipes and roll-your-own cigarettes in recent years. Although consumption on a pound basis has declined steadily for all tobacco products over the past decade, there nevertheless have been areas of growth in this highly mature industry.
Of all the major tobacco product categories, cigars have experienced the fastest unit growth in recent years. Attributable in part by an upturn in luxury goods in general, total U.S consumption of cigars is estimated by the U.S Department of Agriculture has risen by 12 percent in 1997, to 5.1 billion units. Cigar consumption has risen at an annual rate of nearly 11 percent since 1994.
Snuff is the only other product category within the U.S tobacco industry to experience unit growth in 1997; its output expected to increase for the ninth straight year. Production in 1997 is projected by the USDA to be nearly 64 million pounds. Of this total, about 6 percent are considered dry snuff, with the remainder moist snuff.