Buchanan Duke: The man whose creation kills millions of people daily

It looks harmless enough - white, 8cm (3ins) long and about the width of a child's finger - but the cigarette is vilified like no other product. Who invented it and how much responsibility does he bear for the countless deaths it has caused?

US surgeon Alton Ochsner recalled that when he was a medical student in 1919 his class was summoned to observe an autopsy of a lung cancer victim. At that time, the disease was so rare it was thought unlikely the students would ever get another chance.

But by the year 2000, it was estimated that 1.1 million people were dying annually from the disease, with about 85% of those cases stemming from a single cause - tobacco.

"The cigarette is the deadliest artefact in the history of human civilisation," says Robert Proctor of Stanford University. "It killed about 100m people in the 20th Century."


But by the year 2000, it was estimated that 1.1 million people were dying annually from the disease, with about 85% of those cases stemming from a single cause - tobacco.

"The cigarette is the deadliest artefact in the history of human civilisation," says Robert Proctor of Stanford University. "It killed about 100m people in the 20th Century."


Jordan Goodman, the author of Tobacco in History, says that as a historian he is careful about pointing the finger at individuals, "but in the history of tobacco I feel much more confident saying that James Buchanan Duke - otherwise known as Buck Duke - was responsible for the 20th Century phenomenon known as the cigarette."

Not only did Duke help create the modern cigarette, he also pioneered the marketing and distribution systems that have led to its success on every continent.

In 1880, at the age of 24, Duke entered what was then a niche within the tobacco business - ready-rolled cigarettes. A small team in Durham, North Carolina, hand-rolled the Duke of Durham cigarettes, twisting the ends to seal them.

Two years later Duke saw an opportunity. He began working with a young mechanic called James Bonsack, who said he could mechanise cigarette manufacturing. Duke was convinced that people would want to smoke these neatly-rolled, perfectly symmetrical machine-made cigarettes.

Bonsack's machine revolutionised the cigarette industry.

"It's essentially a cigarette of infinite length, cut into the appropriate lengths by whirling shears," says Robert Proctor. The open ends meant it has to be "juiced-up with chemical additives". They added glycerine, sugar and molasses, and chemicals to prevent it drying out.


But keeping cigarettes moist was not the only challenge that Bonsack's contraption presented to Duke. While his factory girls typically rolled about 200 cigarettes in a shift, the new machine produced 120,000 cigarettes a day, about a fifth of US consumption at the time.

"The problem was he produced more cigarettes than he could sell," says Goodman. "He had to work out how to capture this market."

The answer was to be found in advertising and marketing. Duke sponsored races, gave his cigarettes out for free at beauty contests and placed ads in the new "glossies" - the first magazines. He also recognised that the inclusion of collectable cigarette cards was as important as getting the product right. In 1889 alone, he spent $800,000 on marketing (about $25m in today's money).

Bonsack retained the patent to his machine, but as thanks for Duke's support in developing it, he offered him a 30% discount on the lease.

This competitive advantage - coupled with vigorous promotion - was key to Duke's early success. As he had suspected, people liked mechanised cigarettes. They were modern-looking and more hygienic - one campaign emphasised this point over cigars, which were manufactured using human hands and saliva.

But although cigarette smoking in the US quadrupled in the 15 years to 1900, it remained a niche market, with most tobacco being chewed or smoked through pipes and cigars.

Duke - a cigar smoker himself - saw the potential for cigarettes to be used in places closed to cigars and pipes, such as drawing rooms and restaurants. The ease with which they could be lit and - unlike pipes - remain lit, also suited them to coffee breaks in modern city life.
"The cigarette was really used in a different way," says Proctor. "And it was milder - and this is one of the great ironies, that cigarettes were widely thought to be safer than cigars, because they are just 'little cigars', right?"

source: BBC

Follow us on twitter @iNewsGh

Read More

Egypt's historic vote heads towards conclusion

Cairo (CNN) -- Polls opened Thursday morning in Egypt for the second and final day of voting in the country's ground-breaking presidential election, even as many worried the armed forces would quash the results if the top brass doesn't like the country's choice.

It is the first time the country has had a presidential election where no one knows what the result will be before the ballots are cast.

"Finally, Egypt is born," one weeping 80-year-old man said on Wednesday, the first day of voting, to Rep. David Dreier, a California Republican who is in Cairo as an election observer.

Zakaria: Is Egypt ready?

Grandmother Nadia Fahmy, 70, was so determined to be the first one to vote at her polling station that she camped out in a plastic chair for 2½ hours before it opened on Wednesday.

"I am here to vote for the first time in my life," said Fahmy. "I want to see a new generation for my country. I want everything to change."

Other people told CNN they had waited up to four hours to vote as an atmosphere of enthusiasm swept polling stations in the capital.

Egypt elections: 'Women need a champion'

The voting is a monumental achievement for those who worked to topple longtime President Hosni Mubarak in one of the seminal developments of the Arab Spring more than a year ago. And it could reverberate far beyond the country's borders, since Egypt is in many ways the center of gravity of the Arab world.

Egyptian police officers convicted of murder in protest crackdown

"Egypt has always set trends in the Arab world and for Arab political thought. Trends spread through the Arab world and eventually affect even non-Arab, Muslim-majority countries," said Maajid Nawaz, the chairman of Quilliam, a London-based think tank.

Egypt's election "bodes well for the rest of the Arab world and particularly those countries that have had uprisings," said Nawaz, a former Islamist who was imprisoned in Egypt for four years for banned political activism.

There are 13 candidates on the ballot, although two withdrew from the race after ballots were printed. If no candidate gets a majority of the vote in the first round, a second round will be held June 16-17.

Results of the first round are not expected before the weekend.

Some 30,000 volunteers have fanned out to make sure the voting is fair, said organizers with the April 6 youth movement, which has long campaigned for greater democracy and rule of law in Egypt.

They reported only minor violations on Wednesday, mostly supporters of one candidate or another trying to influence voters at polling stations.

There is a pervasive fear that the powerful military, which has run the country since the fall of Mubarak, could try to hijack the election.

Egypt's revolution: 'We fell in love, but it was a trick'

The concern persists despite the insistence of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces that it will hand over power to an elected civilian government. The military put armored personnel carriers on the streets with loudspeakers broadcasting a message that they will relinquish power, but that did not convince doubters.

Nawaz, the analyst in London, said Egypt probably is not heading toward a simple case of the military either giving up control or rejecting the results of the election.

Instead, he anticipated, there will be an "unhappy settlement" where the military remains "ever-present, in the shadows," influencing the civilian government without controlling it.

Old politics joins new in Egypt

"Egypt is going along similar lines to Turkey or Pakistan," he said, naming two other countries that have formal democracies in place but where a powerful military can affect events.

The degree to which the military continues to exercise control in Egypt will depend on who wins the election, Nawaz anticipated -- but he laughed aloud when asked to predict who that would be.

Whoever wins the election, Nawaz said, will face tremendous challenges, even without worries about the army.

"They are inheriting a failed economy, an abysmal bureaucracy, a frustrated people, and a deep distrust on behalf of the people towards their military and any policing," Nawaz said.

And Egypt has an elaborate political mosaic where alliances shift quickly, he added.

Secular democrats oppose military rule, for example, but if an Islamist candidate wins the presidency, "Some of the democrats would switch because they would rather have military rule than the Islamists," Nawaz said.

Opinion: Egypt's military must stop torturing detainees

"It's far more complicated than 'Islamists vs. liberal democracy.' It's rich vs. poor, (hardline) Salafists vs. the (more moderate) Muslim Brotherhood, secularists vs. Islamists," he said.

On top of that, the country does not yet have a new constitution defining the powers of the president or the parliament, after a court last month suspended the committee charged with writing it. The court ruled that the members of the committee did not reflect the national population well enough.

Among the candidates vying for the presidency are Mohamed Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party; Amre Moussa, who served as foreign minister under Mubarak and headed the Arab League; Abdelmonen Abol Fotoh, a moderate Islamist running as a respected independent; Ahmed Shafik, who was Mubarak's last prime minister; and Hamdeen Sabahy, a leftist dark-horse contender.

Shafik was mobbed by opponents who threw things at him when he went to vote Wednesday, his spokesman, Ahmed Serhan, told CNN.

"People chanted against him upon his entrance to cast his vote," Serhan said. That prompted soldiers guarding the polling station to shut the doors while Shafik voted, he said.

"On his way out, some people threw their shoes and rocks at him while he rushed into the car," Serhan said. "He is not hurt, and this attack is not representative of how Egyptian people feel about him."

Many Egyptians seem uncertain of their loyalties to any particular candidate, and even the weakest of arguments or the strangest of rumors can shift public opinion overnight.

The vote comes nearly 16 months after the popular uprising that brought down Mubarak in February 2011. Mubarak was tried on charges of ordering police to shoot protesters during the uprising against him, and of corruption.

He is awaiting the court's verdict and could potentially face the death penalty.

Despite the high-profile trial of the man who ruled the country for 30 years, popular distrust and anger, particularly against the military's power in Egyptian governmental affairs, still inspire protests, some of which have been marked by deadly clashes.

Protesters are upset at what they see as the slow pace of reform since Mubarak's ouster. Some are also concerned that the country's military leadership is delaying the transition to civilian rule.

In January, two Islamist parties won about 70% of the seats in the lower house of parliament in the first elections for an elected governing body in the post-Mubarak era.

The Freedom and Justice Party won 235 seats and the conservative Al Nour party gained 121 seats in the People's Assembly, according to final results. The assembly consists of 498 elected members, and the rest of the seats were divided among other parties.

Read More

Egyptians are voting in their first free presidential election

Egyptians are voting in their first free presidential election, 15 months after ousting Hosni Mubarak in the Arab Spring uprising.

Fifty million people are eligible to vote, and large queues have formed at some polling stations.
The military council which assumed presidential power in February 2011 has promised a fair vote and civilian rule.
The election pits Islamists against secularists, and revolutionaries against Mubarak-era ministers.
But the BBC's Wyre Davies, in the second city of Alexandria, says that for many people the election is not about religious dogma or party politics, but about who can put food on the table.
The frontrunners are:

The frontrunners are:

• Ahmed Shafiq, a former commander of the air force and briefly prime minister during February 2011 protests
• Amr Moussa, who has served as foreign minister and head of the Arab League
• Mohammed Mursi, who heads Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party
• Abdul Moneim Aboul Fotouh, an independent Islamist candidate

Until a new constitution is approved it is unclear what powers the president will have, prompting fears of friction with a military which seems determined to retain its powerful position.

'Free choice'

Voting began at 08:00 local time (06:00 GMT), with queues observed at many Cairo polling stations.
BBC correspondents say the atmosphere is calm, with people waiting patiently for their turn.
There have been no reports of violence on the day, although a police sergeant died after being shot during clashes between rival supporters in Rawdh al-Faraj on Tuesday evening, officials said.
And soldiers were sent to dismantle a large poster of Mr Fotouh opposite the main gates of Nasr City, Cairo, after supporters of his rivals apparently complained about subliminal influence on voters.


"It's a very big day," one woman told the BBC earlier. "This is a real great moment for the Egyptians to change."
Another, when asked how long she had been waiting to vote, replied, with a laugh: "Thirty years."

One man said it was most important for the new president to have his own programme.

"Actually he has to be in the revolution, or he has to be a strong part in the revolution," he said. "This is something which is not negotiable."
Mr Mursi was originally the Muslim Brotherhood's reserve candidate, but he was thrust into the limelight after its first choice, Khairat al-Shater, was disqualified by the Higher Presidential Electoral Commission (HPEC) over an unresolved conviction.

He told reporters during the election: "Today the world is witnessing the birth of a new Egypt. I am proud and cherish my membership of this people. I assure them that tomorrow will be better than today and better than yesterday."
Rash of crime
A run-off vote is scheduled for 16 and 17 June if there is no outright winner.
The election is being hailed as a landmark for Egyptians, who have the opportunity to choose their leader for the first time in the country's 5,000-year recorded history.

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (Scaf), worried about potential post-election unrest, has sought to reassure Egyptians that it will be the voters themselves who decide who will be the next president.
Its leader, Field Marshal Muhammad Hussein Tantawi, observed the election process at a number of polling stations.
The 15 months since Mr Mubarak was forced from power have been turbulent, with continued violent protests and a deteriorating economy.

Foreign direct investment has reversed from $6.4bn (£4bn) flowing into the country in 2010 to $500m leaving it last year.

Tourism, a major revenue generator for Egypt, has also dropped by a third.
The new president will have to reform the police to deal with the rash of crime that followed the uprising.
As many as a third of voters are reported to be undecided about which candidate to choose.
The Arab Spring began in Tunisia last year when weeks of protests forced President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali from power, inspiring pro-democracy activists across the Arab world.

Mr Mubarak, who was in power for three decades, resigned on 11 February 2011 after 18 days of protests in Cairo and other cities.
He is on trial for his alleged role in the deaths of protesters, and a verdict in the case is due on 2 June

Read More