What would have been the consequences if people just never developed a taste for smoking (or chewing) tobacco, and it became no more popular than smoking opium?
What would have been the consequences if people just never developed a taste for smoking (or chewing) tobacco, and it became no more popular than smoking opium?
For starters, later development of the US South, resulting in the early slave trade being smaller (so less slaves in the Americas).
Definitely. Without tobacco, the Virginia Colony might have sputtered out altogether. With a hot and muggy climate, hostile natives, and no economic incentive, England might not have colonized the South until the late 17th century, and that would come with a lot of butterflies.
I agree that without the cash crop that the Virginia and the other colonies might fail to be economically successful...but on the other-hand - cotton might have the South peter by.
People will have their vices, of that I am quite convinced. If not tobacco, then it'll be something else. No shortage of options. A nice cold cocaine-infused tonic, anyone? Of course, it'll have major effects on regions that were economically shaped by the cultivation of tobacco. Others have pointed that out. All I'm saying is: don't expect the world to become healthier, and people to be free of common addiction problems.
I wonder: if cigarettes weren't invented, would chewing, cigars, and pipes have less of a stigma today or would tobacco die a quicker death without the popularity and addictiveness of cigarettes?
Hence my barely-contained rage when ijits suggest that e-cigs are allowed where cigs used to be, such as on buses & trains, in restaurants etc etc..
Cigarette smoking almost singlehandedly turned lung cancer from a relatively rare cancer into a very common cancer. The increase in heart disease is also pretty notable. Prior to that, the more common ways of using tobacco via chewing tobacco, cigars, etc., while certainly not healthy, were definitely healthier than cigarette smoking.
I don't know what other drug might replace nicotine. Coca is an interesting idea, but coca tea doesn't seem to be particularly worse for you or more addicting than caffeine, and even with something like coca wine, the problem is the ethanol in the wine rather than the coca. I don't think cannabis would replace tobacco, since it affects the brain differently, and even then, cannabis doesn't seem any worse or addicting than tobacco.
Addictions, sure, that won't go away. But I doubt people would drink more alcohol just because they don't also smoke.
Not sure what cigarette/tobacco products prices are like eksewhere, but where I'm from they're taxed twice (once for normal VAT and once for "sin tax" - same as alcohol) which means that for a pack of six cigarettes you pay the same as for five loaves of ordinary bread.
very much like this in the Netherlands. I've always found it a highly dubious system, because it relies on completely arbitrary standard of what poluticians consider "bad for you", but alas-- just as people will find a way to use some substance no matter what, governments will find something to tax no matter what.