Smoking reference

Smoking is a practice where a substance, most commonly tobacco, is burned and the smoke tasted or inhaled. This is primarily done as a form of 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, either industrially manufactured or rolled with loose tobacco and a rolling paper. Other forms, though not as common, are pipes, cigars, hookahs and bongs.

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. Most drugs that are smoked are considered to be addictive. Some of the substances are classified as hard narcotics, like heroin and crack cocaine, but the use of these is very limited.

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 Americas, 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.

The cultural 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 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 is among the leading causes of diseases such as lung cancer[1], heart attacks[2] and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease[3], and can also lead to birth defects. The well-proven 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 smoking. Several countries, states and cities have also imposed smoking bans in most public buildings.

Smoking has been practiced in one form or another since ancient times. Tobacco and various hallucinogenic drugs were smoked all over the Americas as early as 5000 BC in shamanistic rituals and originated in the Peruvian and Ecuadorian Andes.[4] 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. In Ancient Greece, smoke was used as healing practice and the Oracle of Delphi made prophecies while intoxicated by inhaling natural gases from a natural bore hole. The Greek historian Herodotos also wrote that the Scythians used cannabis for ritual purposes and, to some degree, pleasure. He describes how Scythians burned hemp seed

Ever since smoking was introduced outside of the Americas, there has been much vehement opposition to it. Arguments had ranged from socio-economic ones, with tobacco being considered a usurper of good farm land, to purely moralistic ones, where many religiously devout individuals saw tobacco as merely another form of immoral intoxication. Many arguments were presented to the effect that smoking was harmful, and even if the critics were in the end right about many of their claims, the complaints were usually not based on scientific arguments, and if they were, these often relied on humorism and other pre-modern scientific methods. Although physicians such as Benjamin Rush had claimed tobacco use (including smoking) negatively impacted one's health as early as 1798,[26] it was not until the early 20th century that serious medical studies began to be conducted. One of the true breakthroughs came in 1948, when the British physiologist Richard Doll published the first major studies that proved that smoking could cause serious health damage.[27]

In some countries with increased taxes, restrictions on where to smoke and anti-smoking advertising there has been a reaction to through smoking defense groups since the 1990s. These groups feel that new regulations and the general atmosphere are oppressive and the stigmatization placed on them has crossed lines not seen before. The smoking defense groups are both independent[28] or funded by tobacco companies.[29]