The filter tip will keep you fit Kiwis loved their smokes. Tobacco use climbed from 0.9 kilgrams a year per person in 1890 to almost 1.4kg a year in 1920. But ready-made cigarettes were slow starters, making up less than half of all tobacco use until 1955. By then, three out of four Kiwi men smoked and a third of women were puffing on that Virginia tobacco. While filters had already made an appearance, early models were mostly crude stubs designed to hold in that lucrative leaf.
Charlotte Curd/Stuff
The modern cigarette filter, made from plastic fibres, has its origins in the 1950s.