Native American Tobacco Research Paper

Tobacco is a cash crop that grows natively in North and South America. Some people believe that Tobacco began growing in the Americas as early as 6,000 B.C. Tobacco has a long history in America, it is believed that American Indians first started using the plant for religious and medicinal practices. The Native Americans believed that tobacco would cure just about everything. In a time before modern day painkillers and medicines, tobacco was used to treat many injuries and to kill pain. Chewing tobacco was used to treat toothaches. (Boston, n.d.). Tobacco was an integral part of the everyday life for Native Americans. However, they did not use this everyday as they understood the risks. One of the first instances of european encounters with the plant was in October of 1492 when Christopher Columbus was given tobacco leaves as a greeting gift from the Native Americans, he encountered. (Boston, n.d.) Soon after, tobacco started making its way back to Europe. Similar to the Native Americans, Europeans believed that tobacco was a cureall. (Boston University, n.d.) As a result of this, the demand for tobacco began to drastically …show more content…
One of them is dopamine. Dopamine is the chemical responsible for feeling pleasure, often associated with a feeling of reward. Nicotine releases dopamine and tricks the brain into feeling a false sense of reward. The release of dopamine is one of the biggest factors in the addictive effects of nicotine and other drugs of abuse, as well as for other compelling activities such as eating. (NIH #1) According to (NIH #1), nicotine releases dopamine in the mesolimbic area, the corpus striatum, and as well as in the frontal cortex. It also tells us, “The dopaminergic neurons in the ventral tegmental area of the midbrain and in the shell of the nucleus accumbens are critical in drug-induced reward (both regions have a role in perceptions of pleasure and

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