The earliest forms of cigarettes were similar to their predecessor (and close relative), the cigar. They are said to have probably originated in Mexico and Central America around the 9th century in the form of reeds and smoking tubes. The Maya, and later Aztec tribes, smoked tobacco as well as other psychoactive drugs during religious rituals, and they frequently depicted images of priests and deities smoking on temple engravings. Until recent years, the most common methods of smoking were smoking the cigarette and the cigar in the Caribbean region, Mexico, and Central and South America.

The North American, Central American, and South American cigarettes comprised various plant wrappers, and upon their return to Spain, maize wrappers were introduced, with fine paper wrappers coming in the 17 century. The resulting product, which was called ‘papelate’, was documented in Goya’s paintings ‘La Cometa, La Merienda en el Manzanares,’ and ‘El juego de la pelota a pala,’ both of which are 18-century artworks. The cigarette crossed into France in 1830, and this is where it received the now popular name ‘cigarette.’

In 1845, the French state tobacco monopoly began manufacturing cigarettes. The French word for this product was adopted by the English in the 1840s. Although some American reformers promoted the spelling of it as ‘cigaret’, it was never widespread and later became obsolete. Afterward, the use of tobacco in English-speaking cultures became more widespread during and after the Crimean War. British soldiers imitated their Ottoman Turkish comrades (and Russian enemies), whom they had seen rolling and smoking tobacco in strips of old newspaper as a proper cigar-rolling leaf was unavailable. This was enhanced by the development of tobacco for cigarette use, as well as the development of the Egyptian cigarette export industry.