Buy stop smoking is one of the most common forms of recreational drug use. Tobacco smoking is today by far the most popular form of smoking and is practiced by over one billion people in the majority of all human societies. Less common drugs for smoking include cannabis and opium. Most drugs that are smoked are considered to be addictive. Some of the substances are classified as hard narcotics, like heroin and craze cocaine, but the use of these is usually limited to socially marginalized groups.

The annals of smoking can be dated to considered in the state of early as 5000 BC, and has been recorded in many different cultures across the world. Tobacco has been cultivated and smoked in the Americas for at least 5000 years, originating in the Peruvian and Ecuadorian Andes. The smoking of cannabis in India has been practiced for through the whole extent of 4000 years. Early smoking evolved in association with religious ceremonies; taken in the character of offerings to deities, in cleansing rituals or to allow shamans and priests to alter their minds for purposes of divination or spiritual enlightenment. After the European exploration and conquest of the Americas, the practice of smoking tobacco quickly spread to the rest of the world. In regions like India and Subsaharan Africa, it merged with existing practices of smoking (mostly of cannabis). In Europe, it introduced a new type of social activity and a form of drug intake which previously had been unknown.

The cultural perception surrounding smoking has varied over time and from one place to another; holy and sinful, sophisticated and general, a panacea and deadly health hazard. Only recently, and primarily in industrialized Western countries, has smoking come to be viewed in a decidedly negative light. Today medical studies have proven that smoking is among the leading causes of diseases such as lung cancer, heart attacks and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and can also lead to birth defects. The well-proven hale condition hazards of smoking have caused many countries to institute high taxes on tobacco products and anti-smoking campaigns are launched every year in an attempt to curb smoking. Several countries, states and cities have also imposed smoking bans in most public places.

The tobacco revolution

An engraving from Jakob Balde's Die truckene from 1658.

later the European exploration and subsequent colonization of the Americas in the 16th centenary, the smoking, cultivation and trading of tobacco quickly spread to all corners of the globe. By the mid-17th century each major civilization had been introduced to tobacco smoking and in many cases had already assimilated it into the inherent culture, despite the attempts of many rulers to stamp the practice confused with harsh penalties or fines. Tobacco, both product and plant, followed the major trade routes to major ports and markets, and for this judgment on into the hinterlands. The English language term 'smoking' was coined in the tardily 17th century; until then it was referred to as 'drinking vanity'.