A serious life-or-death question

November 10, 2020

To smoke or not to smoke, that is the question… or to smoke, not to ban? Tobacco began to be supplied from North America shortly after Columbus's expedition.

To smoke or not to smoke, that is the question… or to smoke, not to ban?

Tobacco began to be supplied from North America shortly after Columbus's expedition. And as early as 1624, Pope Urban VIII introduced a strict ban on smoking worldwide and threatened excommunication from the Roman Catholic Church for those who smoked or sniffed tobacco in holy places.

Initially, the harmful habit did not find support among Slavic peoples either. In the first half of the 17th century, Tsar Mikhail Alekseyevich Romanov introduced a ban on smoking. Contraband goods were burned, and their consumers and traders were subjected to fines and corporal punishment. And after a major fire in Moscow, caused by a smoker in 1634, smoking could even be punishable by death. Later, the ban on smoking was enshrined in the Sobornoye Ulozheniye of 1649, which dedicated as many as ten points to "hellish grass." The use of tobacco was considered a mortal sin, as "tobacco smoke comes from hellish flames," and the process itself was "an offering to Satan, a ritual that only apostates could perform." For the use and sale of tobacco, noses were to be cut off, nostrils torn, exiles sent to distant cities, and property confiscated.

Subsequently, numerous laws were passed in various countries, providing for different degrees of punishment for smoking. For example, in Great Britain and the Ottoman Empire in the late 16th century, smokers were equated with sorcerers and punished by "beheading." The USA acted a little more democratically. The Supreme Court of Massachusetts in 1646 prohibited smoking tobacco within five miles of any city. The following year, Connecticut, following suit, introduced a similar ban.

However, the severity of punishment gradually declined everywhere. This was due to the profit generated by cigarette sales. Unfortunately, even the impressive statistics of fires caused by this harmful habit had almost no impact on the situation, and the percentage of smokers has steadily increased over the past centuries. Peter the Great practically legalized smoking in Russia and even introduced a fashion for this harmful habit, which contributed to its growing popularity. Tobacco overcame all prohibitions.

Today, of course, neither corporal punishment nor, even more so, the death penalty are imposed for smoking. And that is precisely why the choice in favor of one's own health and the safety of loved ones is a choice that everyone must make.