This article is about the history of using tobacco in different ways. The most known and spread version is the smoking of tobacco through cigarettes, cigars and pipes. Other methods like chewing and sniffing are not as popular as smoking, but still widespread.
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Originally the tobacco plant comes from america. It was commonly used there long time before the european conquerers put a foot on the american continent. In North America tobacco used to be chewed, and in the Caribbean region people used to sniff it. In central america people used to roll tobacco to get the first cigars – and smoked them. Smoking itself has probably developed out of a religious ritual, while chewing tobacco has been used to heal several wounds and diseases. Europeans learned to know tobacco very soon after they have arrived on the american ground. In North America tobacco was one of the first gifts Europeans got from the native residents. |
In the 16. and 17. century there has been several attempts to prohibit smoking. There has been people who considered tobacco a strong drug, that was being misused already then. In 1575 there has been the first prohibition for smoking in mexican churches. But there has already been people making huge profits with tobacco, so it was pretty difficult to control all the prohibitions, so that they were of short duration only.
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Jacob the first, at this time king of England published a writing about smoking in which he expressed his disdainfulness and his disgist for smoking. He mistrusted the medical ability of tobacco and was not willing to believe that smoking has a health related purpose only. The first attempt to prohibit tobacco was then to raise the toll on tobacco by about 4000%. The result was that the legal import decreased and with it also the royal revenue. The smuggling increased instead and with it, the consumption. In 1608 the toll on tobacco was lowered again, and tobacco became one of the most profitable niches for the royal "treasury". Not all regions thought only about the profitability like the europeans. In Russia, China, Japan and Turkey people used to fight tobacco with heavy ordance. |
In turkey for example smoking was prohibited because it was seen as a result of the european influence that had to be fought. in 1633 for example all tobacco houses in the former osman kingdom where closed and smokers where threatened with the death penalty.
In the 18. and 19. century the meaning of tobacco has changed. Tobacco was not considered a dangerous drug anymore. In many countries smoking has developed to some kind of fashion. At the end of the 19. century and in during the first half of the 20. century smoking was even considered being charming and elegant. There was almost not gentleman out there who was no smoker, and smoking was considered sexy. When a family was expectin visitors then, they had to know the visitors favourite cigarettes before and make sure they had it when the visitors arrived.
Let’s have a look on the way it is today: If you want to light up a cigarette today you better go outside. It is very rude and disrespectful today to light up a cigarette in the house of a non-smoker today. As we can see, tobacco was first considered dangerous until enough people where addicted to it, to make it popular and elegant.
Smoking isn’t elegant, it isn’t charming either and it is not harmless! The fact that we have changed our minds is no fashion, it is a result of the fact that we are now able to see how harmful tobacco smoke really is. Studies have made it possible to open up our eyes and see the misery, tobacco is bringing to us every day.
No matter how you want to see it – Giving up smoking is always the right decision!
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