Tobacco, Medicine or Vice?

Danilo Anton

 Tobacco was considered medicine in most Native American cultures. It was used it for healing and ceremonial purposes.

The properties of the various varieties of wild and traditional tobacco plants s are little known. We know that tobbaco is smoked by the shaman to receive answers that allow to heal the sick or decide the best ways for communities. The Charruas of Uruguay smoked tobacco before taking important decisions. Among the Guarani M'bya, during ceremonies and meetings, women blow tobacco smoke to their husbands and children to give them strength.

Amazonian peoples also smoke tobacco and use the leavess for medicinal purposes. They ingest the leaves whole or grounded, in order to obtain visionary experiences. 

In that sense, its role is very similar to ayahuasca, it has a psychoactive effect although less intense. There is general agreement among the native shamans that tobacco is the "little sister" of ayahuasca.

The medicinal use of tobacco did not spread in the same way as their recreational use.  Ritual use has been gradually abandoned.

At the same time tobacco smoking spread to Europe first, and then to the rest of the world.

In recent decades, driven by cigarette industrial companies, low nicotine tobacco consumption has increased. This augmented its need and led into addictive behavior.

Global cultivation of tobacco

Tobacco is one of the most widespread global society crops. It reaches million tons kilograms and the amount of money circulating in tobacco trade exceeds those of any other agro-industrial sector. 

While tobacco it can be used in various ways, today virtually all consumption is based on smoking it, especially in the form of cigarettes, made with crushed leaves industrially prepared using special paper, usually presented in small boxes of cardboard with full color printed trademarks.

It is consumed also, although to a much lesser extent, as grounded tobacco (industrially made or "scratched" by hand from solid masses of tobacco or "naco"). This last one is smoked in pipes and cigarettes prepared manually. The leaves can be rolled up and smoked in a "cigar" or "tuscan".

Tobacco diffusion is due to the addictive nature of industrial cigarettes specially modified for maximum addiction.

Normally wild tobacco is much less addictive.

Economic and cultural globalization of tobacco

The processes of globalization in production and trade that ensued after the Second World War, further increased the economic role of industrial tobacco whose production has exceeded 50 million tons annually. Because of its high value per unit of weight this product became one of the leading agro-industrial selling items.

During this period, industrialized tobacco spread to almost all cultures and social layers of the planet.

Today there are about 1,000 million addicts, and probably more than 50 million deaths per year can be linked to harmful effects caused by artificial tobacco especially "designed" to cause addiction.

In recent years, due to the severity of the problem, social movements have emerged to combat the use of tobacco. 

It has been banned or its advertising limited, industrial processing companies have been cornered by numerous legal actions (especially in the US), and in some cases, had to pay large sums to compensate the victims of its consumption. 

While many major European and US fortunes of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were built on the money generated by the production and trade of tobacco, in recent years the "business" is gradually losing its lucrative nature. 

Tobacco companies are "diversifying" their industrial and commercial branches, and gradually the industry has begun a slow decline of their "participation" in world trade. But still, presently many people, perhaps millions of are dying annually affected by toxic products added to cigarettes.

Unfortunately as a result of this widespread alienation, it has been lost sight of the true benefactor nature of tobacco, which has been for so long such an important medicinal plant in the world. It could be again in the future if society relearns the respect for the old plant.

From "Peoples,Drugs and Serpents", Danilo Anton, Piriguazu Ediciones