Tobacco was the first addictive product supplied by the colonisers of America to Europe and its colonies. Just four barrels of the stuff was sent to London around 1613. By 1620, the export from America was 60,000 pounds, and increased rapidly in the next few years. It was only then that land in Virginia gained importance as a commodity.

Tobacco was cultivated on fields belonging to the Natives (the so called ‘Red Indians’) who had been either ruthlessly slaughtered for this purpose, or made to work as slaves on their own lands. As the demand rose, tobacco planters moved further west and eliminated more natives. On the other hand, the 104 settlers who had arrived in 1607 had grown to 60,000.
They felled forests and cleared lands wherever they could.

The Virginian soils were thin and were soon exhausted. The planters quickly abandoned such lands and it was left to erode, while they moved on to clear more forested areas. The tobacco industry was profitable because there was plenty of land to be simply appropriated from the Natives, there were abundant forests to he felled to cure the leaves, there were numerous slaves to provide nearly free labour, and because there was an artificial demand for it created in Europe. Thus it came to pass that the first colony of what was to become the United States, was saved by and built entirely around, a product of human and environmental debilitation.

The rapid global expansion of smoking began in this century, particularly due to the impact of advertising which promoted the cigarette as a symbol of the consumer culture, providing pleasure, power, individuality and sexuality. Between 1900 and 1965, per capita consumption in the US rose nearly nine times.

When the connection between smoking and lung cancer was published in the US Surgeon General's Report of 1964, it was thought that smokers would quit quickly, and the tobacco industry would collapse. However, it is only of late – after more than four decades, that the hazards associated with smoking have come to be acknowledged and accepted by all sections of our society. Today the law prohibits smoking in public spaces. Advertisements, either direct or surrogate, have disappeared. A non-smoker’s right to breathe air free of tobacco smoke is hesitatingly accepted. But is all this too little that has happened too late?