The history of smoking dates back to as early as BC in the Americas in shamanistic rituals. With the arrival of the Europeans in the 16th century, the consumption, cultivation, and trading of tobacco quickly spread. The modernization of farming equipment and manufacturing increased the availability of cigarettes following the reconstruction era in the United States. Mass production quickly expanded the scope of consumption, which grew until the scientific controversies of the s, and condemnation in the s.
In Eurasia, cannabis was common before the arrival of tobacco, and is known to have been used since at least BC. Cannabis was not commonly smoked directly until tobacco came into widespread use in the 16th century. Before this cannabis and numerous other plants were vaporized on hot rocks or charcoal, burned as incense or in vessels and censers and inhaled indirectly. Evidence of direct smoking before the 16th century is contentious, with pipes thought to have been used to smoke cannabis dated to the 10th to 12th centuries found in Southeastern Africa.
Previously eaten for its medicinal properties, opium smoking became widespread in China and the West during the 19th century. These led to the establishment of opium dens. In the latter half of the century, opium smoking became popular in the artistic communities of Europe. While opium dens continued to exist throughout the world, the trend among the Europeans abated during the First World War, and among the Chinese under the Mao regime.
More widespread cigarette usage as well as increased life expectancy during the s made adverse health effects more noticeable. In , Fritz Lickint of Dresden, Germany, published formal statistical evidence of a cancer—tobacco link. 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 BC in shamanistic rituals and originated in the Peruvian and Ecuadorian Andes.
However, the burning of incense is not direct inhalation. It has been suggested that cannabis resin or possibly opium was at times included in this incense. The ancient Assyrians employed cannabis fumes as a cure for "poison of the limbs", presumed to mean arthritis. The Greek historian Herodotos wrote that the Scythians vaporized cannabis seeds as part of their cultural rituals.
