History & policy databaseTobacco has perhaps always been in some way associated with the palpable effects its consumption can have for its users. Whatever its impacts on the body, there is a sort of embodied knowledge, a feeling that tobacco ‘does things to the smoker’, acting as a ‘nerve cooler, a relief to irritability and depression, and a bolsterer-up of morale’ (as a Mass-Observation report in 1949 put it). Though always debated by lay enthusiasts and medical experts, the health benefits of smoking were often noted by commentators during the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. This is because there was a perceived need for a practical tonic to combat the feelings of anxiety and stress that many were apparently feeling in the face of modernity, which was associated with a faster and more complex, usually urban, way of life. Much like the patent medicines and ‘tonic foods’ (such as Ovaltine) designed to restore frayed nerves, tobacco was a readily available means of self-medication, particularly as it became mass produced from the 1880s. Today, associating smoking with good health, of course, seems highly counterintuitive. But there remains a common-sense connection between smoking and improved mental state, particularly as a shortcut to stress relief.
For some late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century writers, tobacco was the ideal practical solution to the strains of everyday life in rapidly industrialising and urbanising Britain. For example, the tobacco historian W.A. Penn wrote in 1901 that smoking was made useful by the ‘mental strain and worry produced by the stress and speed of modern life… in tobacco man has found, as did his ancestors, the best of all Nature’s remedies to minister to body and mind distressed’. As early as 1857, medical journal The Lancet had similarly underlined tobacco as ‘one of those agreeable and refreshing stimuli which restore the equilibrium of the jaded and over-worked nervous systems of the times in which we live’.
Such ideas had long been found in the medical press, and continued to be influential, particularly in the face of modern war. Even before the mass slaughter of the First World War (1914-18) – a conflict that became intimately associated with physical disability and psychological trauma, not least ‘shell shock’ – smoking was presented as a source of solace for servicemen. In the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902), medical writers suggested that tobacco staved off hunger pangs and helped men sleep. During the Crimean War (1853-6), tobacco was held to be a panacea, acting simultaneously as a calming sedative, an invigorating stimulant and a guard against infectious disease. Such ideas were not new, but their adaptation to the context of soldierly welfare, and association with the fortitude of the combatant, became particularly influential and enduring. During the First World War, tobacco was said to support morale, and its provision (in official ration packs and via public donations) was related both to everyday wellbeing and recovery from injury. This continued some twenty years later during the Second World War (1939-45). The documentary photographs and films of this war, and the postwar period, are testament to the ubiquity of the cigarette among men and women by this point, as historian Robert Mackay pointed out in his 2002 book. Postwar cinema cemented smoking’s association with glamour and the rise of a more socially liberal, even permissive society.
Why is this historical perspective relevant to us today? Were these pro-tobacco advocates merely misguided?
Of course, much of what we know today about the harms of smoking was not confirmed until the mid-twentieth century, but such writers articulated a prevalent ‘common-sense’ understanding of tobacco use that foregrounded its role in endurance and resilience as society became more complex, life more stressful, and wars became all-encompassing. Such a common-sense understanding of smoking survives today, particularly the connection with stress relief, and has been found to be evident among constituencies of smokers and e-cigarette (vape) users, even though medical research suggests nicotine ingestion actually increases stress levels. There is, then, a degree of continuity between the two forms of nicotine consumption. But there is more to this consumption than addiction to nicotine, a point highlighted in sociological and psychological research. The tobacco plant, smoking as a social practice (with vaping as a sort of surrogate or potential replacement) and the smoking-stress relief connection, have significant cultural value that should not be overlooked in our efforts to understand the enduring presence of nicotine in our lives.
In Britain, where more young people are trying vapes than ever before (with use trending upwards, while smoking continues its gradual decline), the cigarette might even be seen as countercultural among some social groups. Indeed, smoking may well be ‘cool’ again, as prominent celebrities (dubbed ‘cigfluencers’) appear to be tapping into the cigarette’s longstanding association with nonchalance, glamour and defiance. The longevity of this image can be at least partly explained by the enduring images of smoking in popular culture, particularly the cachet of Hollywood films. For instance, Humphrey Bogart smoked copiously in 1942’s Casablanca, while Bette Davis and Paul Henreid’s shared moment of smoking in Now, Voyager (also 1942) saw the cigarette act as a sort of substitute for sexual intimacy. Such representations were directly influenced by the tobacco industry, who not only engaged directly with movie studios to place products in films; they also benefitted from the glamourous image such stars brought to the cigarette. Today, ‘Big Tobacco’ still has much to gain from representations in the media given that, after many decades of public health messaging and legislation around the dangers of smoking, the relative rarity of cigarettes in public life has perhaps renewed their aura of cool (2023’s Saltburn and Oppenheimer are good examples of this resurgence, and both represent historical periods when smoking was common).
The air of glamour and self-assurance associated with a bygone age of smoking, presented by cigfluencers, seems to be particularly appealing to some young people, a number of whom may have taken up smoking during the COVID-19 pandemic as a perceived way to deal with the anxieties of life in lockdown. So, this revival may be the result of a confluence of factors: not least the very real mental health legacies of the pandemic (and other ongoing crises), the growing ubiquity of vaping and the enduring cultural cachet of the cigarette.
Of course, modern life continues to be challenging for many people, in the face of a continuing cost of living crisis, global political uncertainty and the looming threat of climate catastrophe. Military conflicts are ever-present and smoking amongst service personnel remains higher than in society at large, while non-combatants often cite everyday wartime experience, including the noise of bombardment, as an inducement to smoking. Looking to key lessons from the past, including the common-sense association of smoking with stress relief, can help us understand why people continue to consume tobacco and nicotine products even in the face of knowledge about their harms. These historical perspectives can enrich our discussions of addiction and disease, and can potentially bring issues of embodied knowledge, lay medicine and intangible cultural value into the development of government policy and public health education.
