INTRODUCTION HISTORY 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 and crack cocaine, but the use of these is very limited as they are often not commercially available.

The history of smoking dates back to as 5000 BC in shamanistic rituals. Many ancient civilizations, such as the Babylonians, Indians and Chinese , burnt incense as 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 and various other hallucinogenic drugs was used to achieve trances and to come into contact with the spirit world.

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 flaunted the ban to have 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 1 of England, a staunch anti-smoker and the author of a Counterblast to tobacco, tried to curb the new trend by enforcing a whooping 4000% tax increase on tobacco in 1604, it proved a failure, as London had some 7000 tobacco sellers by the early 1600s.Later, scrupulous ruler would realize the futility of smoking bans and instead turned tobacco trade and cultivations into lucrative government monopolies.

By the mid-1600s 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 harsh penalties of 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 1700s, 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 1800 in Lubuko ( The land Of friendships ) .The Bena Diemba were collectivist pacifists that rejected and herb 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.