Phillip Morris died young — one wonders what of — and left behind him two brands of cigarettes — Oxford and Cambridge Blues, which continued to gain, market...

Some time ago, I finished a book called "Ashes to Ashes, America’s Hundred-Year Cigarette War, The Public Health, and the Unabashed Triumph of Phillip Morris." Whew. What a title. And long, like 800 pages. Heavy, too, about six pounds, not to mention sleep-inducing.I found this book on the library shelf. It looked lonely, like it needed to be read. So I took it home, and learned a bunch of stuff about smoking. Something interesting popped up about every 75 pages, give or take. It was tough going.

Smoking didn’t really gain a foothold in civilized society until the late 1800s, although tobacco had been around since Columbus discovered the New World, and found the natives here using it for ceremonial purposes. Ironic, isn’t it: We thought we’d won, but the American Indian, with his peace pipe poked full of leafy tobacco, gave us the best prize of all — lung cancer. We forgot to notice that he only smoked it once in a while, not 50 times a day.From those explorers who followed Columbus, tobacco made its way back to Sir Walter Raleigh in England. He and his friends decided to chew it and snuffle it, even though a Frenchman named Nicot-who had the honor of having nicotine named after him-said you should burn it and inhale it.

So the French smoked it and called the English heathens; the English chewed it and called the French sissies. The French coughed, and the English spat. It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.Soon, where ever tobacco-chewing people congregated in England, the train stations and bars and hotels and sidewalks and tapestries and everyone’s pant legs became brown-spattered symbols of progress. Something had to change.

No soap yet invented would remove this glop. Along came England’s Phillip Morris, who popularized smoking finally, although not in too great a way, but enough to increase public awareness that there was other life besides one filled with spit. (At least, one could cough into a handkerchief, and contain the splatter.)

Phillip Morris died young — one wonders what of — and left behind him two brands of cigarettes — Oxford and Cambridge Blues, which continued to gain market share over there amongst young college students, who in turn took smoking with them when they themselves travelled throughout the world.The Civil War proved to be just the right place for a quick couple of puffs of energizing nicotine, just before one charged over the hill into direct cannon fire. One must conclude that it was difficult to charge the enemy and spit on the run. Anyway, by the end of the Civil War, there was enough paper manufacturing here to make cigarettes popular with everyone, whether they were boughten or hand rolled. (Boughten is my word. All the good words I grew up with are gone.)

Cigarette manufacturers from the get-go showed a real knack for misrepresenting, distorting, and otherwise misleading the public and themselves as they touted smoking for everything from a digestive aid to a disinfectant.Add to that its proven-well, apparently--relief to men in battle, and during World War Two, cigarette smoking took off and went big. All this was helped by some tobacco company maneuvering that placed cigarettes in K-rations. World War Two saw nine million men come home addicted to nicotine. Nine million new customers.

The American cigarette-Bull Durham was first, made in Durham, North Carolina, was off and running. Nine million new customers, mass production machinery, and Madison Avenue advertising-we were on our way. Despite the continued popularity of the little Bull Durem bags of granulated roll-your-own tobacco-cigarettes made by Big Tobacco are here to stay.

I was in the store the other day when a woman ahead of me asked the clerk for "any cigarettes with a discount coupon on the pack." Upon being showed one brand, she said, "No, cheaper." Another was held up. Uh uh. Cheaper, yet.This woman was smart. I tend to underestimate smokers’ intelligence, a personal failing that ranks their inability to connect their dedicated drive to smoke themselves into an early grave to their general overall intelligence. My bad.

Finally, the clerk held up the cheapest of the bunch, I guess, because the woman said, "Yes. That one."As I said, this woman was smart. According to "Ashes to Ashes," in tests to figure this out, blindfolded participants couldn’t tell one brand from another. I can’t, either. All their coughs sound the same.