Catherine Goodwin, age 12, of Spokane, Washington, for her question:

How did smoking get started?

Tobacco plants are native to the New World and no one knows when the American Indians started smoking the large leaves. Certainly the custom was popular long before Columbus crossed the Atlantic. During the next century or so, the American smoking habit became popular in most European countries and the cultivation of tobacco plants flourished in the colonies and many other countries.

Columbus was one of the first Europeans to learn about tobacco. He found that the native people of the Caribbean smoked dried leaves in a Y shaped pipe which they called a tabaca. They claimed that the fumes of the herb had a calming, pacifying effect and that their tabaca was a peace pipe, reserved for ceremonial occasions. No doubt the early Spanish explorers sampled a puff or two. But the North American settlers of the 1500's and 1600's became more enthusiastic about it. Tabaca, the name of the original peace pipe, was used to name the herb, and smoking was introduced in France, Portugal, Spain and England.

James I was not one of England's most beloved kings, and when he tried to ban the use of tobacco, no one paid any attention to him. Perhaps if the smokers had known what we in the 20th century know, they would have agreed to renounce tobacco before the habit got a thorough grip on the population. Instead, they smoked pipes and cigars, chewed tobacco and even sniffed it in a powdered form called snuff. And, like the Caribbeans they really believed that tobacco was a beneficial medication.

Meanwhile, the American colonists started cultivating tobacco plants brought from two areas  ¬the Caribbean and the Orinoco River in South America. However, the Puritans of New England considered smoking to be a waste of time and tried to ban it. At first the colonists of Virginia also tried to ban the growing of tobacco on the grounds that it used up valuable land for growing crops. Unfortunately no one paid much attention. As time went on, tobacco smoking spread rapidly around the world and the tobacco industry grew to be very big business. Even in the 1940s, its advertising claimed, or at least hinted, that cigarette smoking was sort of beneficial.

By this time, medical scientists suspected that cigarette smoking might be dangerous to human health. In 1960, a team of eleven scientists started a thorough study of its effects. Their findings were announced by the U.S. Surgeon General in 1964    and every sensible smoker was shocked. As we all now know, these fumes are indeed dangerous to human lungs and hearts and maybe other parts of the body. In recent years, many former smokers have freed themselves of the habit. But unfortunately, tobacco is strongly habit forming and many who would like to renounce it fail to do so. Perhaps the younger generation is luckier because they now know enough not to start.

The story of tobacco reminds one somewhat of the present day debates on marijuana. There was a time when smokers really believed that tobacco had its good qualities, even though they were not sure what these were or whether it also had a lot of bad qualities. This point of view sounds a lot like those who try to tempt us to try marijuana. So be careful    just in case medical science proves that marijuana is even more sneaky than tobacco.