Nicotine has been used as a psychoactive drug by the native peoples of the Americas for approximately 8,000 years. Five hundred years ago, Christopher Columbus introduced tobacco to Europeans, who discovered, once they overcame the nausea and dizziness produced by snorting, chewing, and smoking it, they simply could not get along without it. Nicotine rapidly joined alcohol and caffeine as one of the world’s most popular psychoactive drugs. In the century after Columbus returned from the Americas with tobacco, consumption and addiction to nicotine spread rapidly around the world. This was followed by numerous attempts by governments to quash what had come to be called the “evil weed.” None were successful, even in Russia where a smoker could be executed for using it. A few years ago, the head of the Food and Drug Administration announced that his agency had concluded that nicotine is addictive and should be classified the same as heroin, and cocaine.

What can we predict will happen if tobacco is completely prohibited?