Mario Zimmermann, assistant clinical professor in the Department of Anthropology, has co-authored a chapter with Shannon Tushingham exploring the complex history of tobacco in the book “Tobacco Through Time: Interdisciplinary Perspectives,” according to an April 16 announcement.
The book examines how tobacco, once considered a sacred medicine by Indigenous peoples across the Americas, evolved into one of today’s leading causes of preventable death. The authors highlight that much existing research on tobacco is Eurocentric and mainly focused on recent post-colonial history. This perspective often overlooks thousands of years during which humans interacted with tobacco before European colonization.
At the time Europeans arrived in the Americas, tobacco was likely the most widely used psychoactive plant on the continent. Its use varied across different ecological regions: farming societies cultivated domesticated species such as Nicotiana rustica and Nicotiana tabacum, while hunter-gatherer communities harvested wild varieties. People consumed these plants through various methods including smoking pipes or cigars, snuffing, chewing, drinking infusions, or even by enema—each method tied to specific spiritual or healing traditions.
Despite commercial tobacco’s transformation of its role globally, many Indigenous communities continue to maintain its sacred significance today. The scale of change is significant; nicotine dependence now affects more than 1.1 billion people worldwide (WHO 2022), making it a major public health issue.
Zimmermann and Tushingham argue that understanding humanity’s long-term relationship with tobacco is crucial for developing better strategies to address nicotine addiction and reduce its global health impact.
