Smoking

Smoking tobacco became the world's favourite hobby after Walter Raleigh discovered the plant in the 16th century and started giving away free samples at his bicycle shop. The habit was considered a cheap and safe way to keep warm and look more interesting to girls but it took a sinister turn after the Second World War after the introduction of nicotine to the product. This was intended to reduce the nasty smell and was widely welcomed but then it turned out to be an addictive carcinogen which killed millions of people which made people change their mind, at least outside France.

Attitudes to smoking vary widely around the world. Smoking in enclosed public spaces is now forbidden in the UK and large parts of the USA but remains widespread in Eastern Germany where smoking was promoted during the Communist era as an anti-Facist symbol, smoking having been disapproved of by the Nazis. As already intimated, the French regard smoking as a national pastime although classrooms are now divided into smoking and non-smoking areas. In South America, smoking has undergone something of a Renaissance as a popular anti-US reaction. At the other end of the spectrum, moves have been made by the Dutch government to have smoking officially designated by the UN as a crime against humanity with smokers to be prosecuted at the International Criminal Court at the Hague.