Smoking is a practice in which a substance, most commonly tobacco
or cannabis, is burned and the smoke is tasted or inhaled. This is
primarily practised as a route of administration for recreational drug
use, as combustion releases the active substances in drugs such as
nicotine and makes them available for absorption through the lungs. It
can also be done as a part of rituals, to induce trances and spiritual
enlightenment.
The most common method of smoking today is through
cigarettes, primarily industrially manufactured but also hand-rolled
from loose tobacco and rolling paper. Other smoking implements include
pipes, cigars, bidis, hookahs, vaporizers and bongs. It has been
suggested that smoking-related disease kills one half of all long term
smokers but these diseases may also be contracted by non-smokers. A 2007
report states that about 4.9 million people worldwide each year die as a
result of smoking.
Smoking is one of the most common forms of
recreational drug use. Tobacco smoking is today by far the most popular
form of smoking and is practiced by over one billion people in the
majority of all human societies. Less common drugs for smoking include
cannabis and opium. Some of the substances are classified as hard
narcotics, like heroin, but the use of these is very limited as they are
often not commercially available.
The history of smoking can be
dated to as early as 5000 BC, and has been recorded in many different
cultures across the world. Early smoking evolved in association with
religious ceremonies; as offerings to deities, in cleansing rituals or
to allow shamans and priests to alter their minds for purposes of
divination or spiritual enlightenment. After the European exploration
and conquest of the Americans, the practice of smoking tobacco quickly
spread to the rest of the world. In regions like India and Subsaharan
Africa, it merged with existing practices of smoking (mostly of
cannabis). In Europe, it introduced a new type of social activity and a
form of drug intake which previously had been unknown.
Perception
surrounding smoking has varied over time and from one place to another;
holy and sinful, sophisticated and vulgar, a panacea and deadly health
hazard. Only relatively recently, and primarily in industrialized
Western countries, has smoking come to be viewed in a decidedly negative
light. Today medical studies have proven that smoking tobacco is among
the leading causes of many diseases such as lung cancer, heart attacks,
COPD, erectile dysfunction and can also lead to birth defects. The
inherent health hazards of smoking have caused many countries to
institute high taxes on tobacco products and anti-smoking campaigns are
launched every year in an attempt to curb tobacco smoking.
Early Smoker
The
history of smoking dates back to as early as 5000 BC in shamanistic
rituals. Many ancient civilizations, such as the Babylonians, Indians
and Chinese, burnt incense as a part of religious rituals, as did the
Israelites and the later Catholic and Orthodox Christian churches.
Smoking in the Americas probably had its origins in the incense-burning
ceremonies of shamans but was later adopted for pleasure, or as a social
tool. The smoking of tobacco, as well as various hallucinogenic drugs
was used to achieve trances and to come into contact with the spirit
world.
Substances such as Cannabis, clarified butter (ghee), fish
offal, dried snake skins and various pastes molded around incense
sticks dates back at least 2000 years. Fumigation (dhupa) and fire
offerings (homa) are prescribed in the Ayurveda for medical purposes,
and have been practiced for at least 3,000 years while smoking,
dhumrapana (literally "drinking smoke"), has been practiced for at least
2,000 years. Before modern times these substances have been consumed
through pipes, with stems of various lengths or chillums.
Cannabis
smoking was common in the Middle East before the arrival of tobacco,
and was early on a common social activity that centered around the type
of water pipe called a hookah. Smoking, especially after the
introduction of tobacco, was an essential component of Muslim society
and culture and became integrated with important traditions such as
weddings, funerals and was expressed in architecture, clothing,
literature and poetry.
Cannabis smoking was introduced to
Sub-Saharan Africa through Ethiopia and the east African coast by either
Indian or Arab traders in the 13th century or earlier and spread on the
same trade routes as those that carried coffee, which originated in the
highlands of Ethiopia.[6] It was smoked in calabash water pipes with
terra cotta smoking bowls, apparently an Ethiopian invention which was
later conveyed to eastern, southern and central Africa.
At the
time of the arrivals of Reports from the first European explorers and
conquistadors to reach the Americas tell of rituals where native priests
smoked themselves into such high degrees of intoxication that it is
unlikely that the rituals were limited to just tobacco.
Popularization of Smoker
For more about the impact and development of tobacco, see History of tobacco.
For more about the commercial development of tobacco, see History of commercial tobacco in the United States.
In
1612, six years after the settlement of Jamestown, John Rolfe was
credited as the first settler to successfully raise tobacco as a cash
crop. The demand quickly grew as tobacco, referred to as "golden weed",
revived the Virginia join stock company from its failed gold
expeditions. In order to meet demands from the old world, tobacco was
grown in succession, quickly depleting the land. This became a motivator
to settle west into the unknown continent, and likewise an expansion of
tobacco production. Indentured servitude became the primary labor force
up until Bacon's Rebellion, from which the focus turned to slavery.
This trend abated following the American revolution as slavery became
regarded as unprofitable. However the practice was revived in 1794 with
the invention of the cotton gin.
A Frenchman named Jean Nicot
(from whose name the word nicotine is derived) introduced tobacco to
France in 1560. From France tobacco spread to England. The first report
of a smoking Englishman is of a sailor in Bristol in 1556, seen
"emitting smoke from his nostrils". Like tea, coffee and opium, tobacco
was just one of many intoxicants that was originally used as a form of
medicine. Tobacco was introduced around 1600 by French merchants in what
today is modern-day Gambia and Senegal. At the same time caravans from
Morocco brought tobacco to the areas around Timbuktu and the Portuguese
brought the commodity (and the plant) to southern Africa, establishing
the popularity of tobacco throughout all of Africa by the 1650s.
Soon
after its introduction to the Old World, tobacco came under frequent
criticism from state and religious leaders. Murad IV, sultan of the
Ottoman Empire 1623-40 was among the first to attempt a smoking ban by
claiming it was a threat to public moral and health. The Chinese emperor
Chongzhen issued an edict banning smoking two years before his death
and the overthrow of the Ming dynasty. Later, the Manchu of the Qing
dynasty, who were originally a tribe of nomadic horse warriors, would
proclaim smoking "a more heinous crime than that even of neglecting
archery". In Edo period Japan, some of the earliest tobacco plantations
were scorned by the shogunate as being a threat to the military economy
by letting valuable farmland go to waste for the use of a recreational
drug instead of being used to plant food crops.[14]
Bonsack's cigarette rolling machine, as shown on U.S. patent 238,640.
Religious
leaders have often been prominent among those who considered smoking
immoral or outright blasphemous. In 1634 the Patriarch of Moscow forbade
the sale of tobacco and sentenced men and women who flouted the ban to
have their nostrils slit and their backs whipped until skin came off
their backs. The Western church leader Urban VII likewise condemned
smoking in a papal bull of 1590. Despite many concerted efforts,
restrictions and bans were almost universally ignored. When James I of
England, a staunch anti-smoker and the author of a A Counterblaste to
Tobacco, tried to curb the new trend by enforcing a whopping 4000% tax
increase on tobacco in 1604, it proved a failure, as London had some
7,000 tobacco sellers by the early 17th century. Later, scrupulous
rulers would realise the futility of smoking bans and instead turned
tobacco trade and cultivation into lucrative government monopolies.
By
the mid-17th century every major civilization had been introduced to
tobacco smoking and in many cases had already assimilated it into the
native culture, despite the attempts of many rulers to stamp the
practice out with harsh penalties or fines. Tobacco, both product and
plant, followed the major trade routes to major ports and markets, and
then on into the hinterlands. The English language term smoking was
coined in the late 18th century, before then the practice was referred
to as drinking smoke.
Tobacco and cannabis were used in
Sub-Saharan Africa, much like elsewhere in the world, to confirm social
relations, but also created entirely new ones. In what is today Congo, a
society called Bena Diemba ("People of Cannabis") was organized in the
late 19th century in Lubuko ("The Land of Friendship"). The Bena Diemba
were collectivist pacifists that rejected alcohol and herbal medicines
in favor of cannabis.
The growth remained stable until the
American Civil War in 1860s, from which the primary labor force
transition from slavery to share cropping. This compounded with a change
in demand, lead to the industrialization of tobacco production with the
cigarette. James Bonsack, a craftsman, in 1881 produce a machine to
speed the production in cigarettes.
No comments:
Post a Comment