Reynolds, Duke & Liggett — NC’s Tobacco Corporate Heritage

Last verified: April 2026

R.J. Reynolds — Winston-Salem

• Founded: 1875 by Richard Joshua Reynolds.
• Camel cigarettes: introduced 1913.
• Market share peak: Camel held roughly 43% of the U.S. market by 1925.
• 2017 acquisition: Reynolds American became a wholly owned subsidiary of British American Tobacco in a $49.4 billion transaction.

Winston-Salem’s identity, civic infrastructure, and philanthropy — including the Reynolda estate — are built directly on the company’s twentieth-century revenues. The 2017 BAT acquisition placed a multinational tobacco giant at the center of any future NC cannabis-adjacent corporate story.

American Tobacco Company — Durham

• Founder: James Buchanan (“Buck”) Duke.
• Scale: By 1899 the American Tobacco Company was the third-largest U.S. corporation.
• Sherman Antitrust breakup: 1911 — the U.S. Supreme Court dissolved the company into successor firms (R.J. Reynolds, Liggett & Myers, P. Lorillard, and a reduced American Tobacco).
• Educational legacy: Duke’s wealth endowed Trinity College, which renamed itself Duke University in 1924.

Durham’s downtown — including American Tobacco Campus — is the physical reuse of the company’s nineteenth-century industrial footprint. The company’s research investment and Duke’s subsequent medical and pharmacology institutions are part of the long arc that today funds NC’s university hemp research described on the farm pivot page.

Liggett & Myers — Durham

Liggett & Myers (Durham) produced the Chesterfield and L&M brands and was a major NC employer for the better part of the twentieth century. As one of the four post-1911 successor companies, Liggett anchored the second pole of Durham’s tobacco industry alongside Duke’s American Tobacco footprint.

NC’s #1 Tobacco State Era

NC was the #1 U.S. tobacco-producing state from the mid-19th century through the late twentieth century. The crop was central to NC’s rural economy from Piedmont to coastal plain. The end of that era was driven not by demand collapse but by two policy interventions:

The 1998 Master Settlement Agreement

The Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) between 46 states and the major tobacco companies allocated approximately $4.6 billion to NC over 25 years. NC’s distribution of MSA dollars was distinctive:

• Golden LEAF Foundation (Long-term Economic Advancement Foundation), established 1999, focused on long-term economic development for tobacco-dependent regions.
• NC Tobacco Trust Fund Commission, established 2000, focused on farmer transition assistance.

A 2007 American Journal of Public Health analysis (Jones et al., Wake Forest University) noted that NC’s post-MSA framework prioritized farmer transition over youth prevention — a programmatic choice with both economic and public-health implications.

NC distributed Master Settlement dollars through the Golden LEAF Foundation and the NC Tobacco Trust Fund Commission, prioritizing farmer transition and rural economic development over youth tobacco prevention programs.

Jones et al., American Journal of Public Health, 2007

The 2004 Fair and Equitable Tobacco Reform Act

The federal Fair and Equitable Tobacco Reform Act of 2004 ended the Depression-era federal tobacco quota system and bought out remaining quota holders. NC growers and quota holders received transition payments and were free, for the first time in seventy years, to grow tobacco without quota — or to pivot crops entirely. Many did neither at scale; many pivoted to hemp during the 2017–2019 pilot. See the farm pivot page for what came next.

NC Hemp Before Prohibition

Hemp’s NC roots stretch back to colonial-era cultivation as a naval store and rope/canvas crop:

• 1709: John Lawson’s A New Voyage to Carolina mentions hemp as a viable crop.
• 1760: Gov. Arthur Dobbs petitioned the legislature for an export premium on NC hemp.
• 1766: Under Gov. William Tryon, the General Assembly authorized two hemp inspection warehouses — at Halifax and at Campbellton (now part of Fayetteville).

Legal cultivation effectively ended after the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act, with brief WWII “Hemp for Victory” production. Hemp returned to NC fields under the 2014 federal Farm Bill pilot in 2017.

Why the Corporate Heritage Matters for Cannabis

NC’s corporate tobacco heritage matters for the cannabis story for three reasons:

1. Reusable infrastructure. Tobacco warehouses, drying barns, and processing plants are physically suited to hemp at scale. Open Book Extracts in Roxboro is the most prominent example — a 76,000 sq ft cGMP hemp facility inside a former tobacco warehouse. See the farm pivot page.
2. MSA-funded transition capital. Golden LEAF and the Tobacco Trust Fund Commission were already in place when hemp returned in 2017, providing grant capital for university research and farmer pilot participation.
3. Multinational corporate proximity. R.J. Reynolds’ status as a BAT subsidiary places a multinational cigarette company at the edge of any NC cannabis-adjacent corporate development — a dynamic Kentucky’s bourbon-and-hemp parallel does not match.

Official Sources

• Golden LEAF Foundation
• NC Tobacco Trust Fund Commission
• Public Health Law Center — Master Settlement Agreement
• American Journal of Public Health