Tobacco

// What could have been.

By Tristan Smith .
12.06.08 // Tobacco

You don’t know much about American history.  And that’s ok.  The dead don’t care.  A quick lesson though:

This country was founded on a demand for headrushes.  Upon exposure to tobacco’s quick and social intoxication, Europe began centuries of addiction.  And with its perfect sandy soil and seemingly infinite expanses of arable land, recently founded Virginia became the Old World’s supplier for the deliciously toasted gold-brown leaf.

But what if things had been different?  What if tobacco didn’t exist, and our nation’s firsts had been forced to find profits elsewhere?  Here are three examples of such an alternate history.

Coffee

Clearly, we were already a high-strung nation.  Deficient in representation, the colonists revolted and begun sniping British officers.  The substitution of coffee for tobacco would have also meant the substitution of coffee for tea, and while we might have added some cool Juan Valdez-style facial hair to the portraits on our currency, the extra caffeine would have probably caused Thomas Jefferson to write the declaration of independence twenty minutes before it was due.

Marijuana

Our forefathers would never have gathered the ambition necessary to eradicate an entire civilization.  Instead, we would have hung out for a while, looked forward to Thanksgiving even more than we already did, and considered braiding those crazy white wigs into dreadlocks.  Even if we managed to establish a nation, Lewis and Clark would never have journeyed into the unknown.  Rather, the bros would have walked around the woods (which were basically everywhere) for a while, eaten some stew and settled down for for a discussion about how crazy it is that boats exist that can sail across an entire ocean.

Beets

A society built on the back of the beet is hardly a society at all.  You know how when you were little you used to have a friend whose house smelled weird, to the point where you would be uncomfortable when you went over there?  That smell was beets.  And America would be that friend’s house.

View Comments / Dec 06.08 / Tobacco / by Tristan Smith

// Not even the meteor shower of ’96 could stop her.

By Ben Cheney .
12.02.08 // Tobacco

It’s 20 degrees outside.  The wind is blowing like a banshee, making the shutters slam against the side of the house like a homeless man begging for shelter.  The snow has been falling for the past 7 hours making deep drifts against the front porch.  It’s winter in New Jersey, and Margaret steps outside to light up.  As she raises her cigarette stained fingers to her lips, she shivers against the cold.  Inhaling deeply, she closes her eyes, reveling in the suffocating ecstasy of the first puff.

For 24 years Margaret has braved rain, sleet, and snow for the sweet taste of her tightly rolled tobacco friend.  Nothing has stood in her way.  Not the blizzard of ’89.  Not the hurricane of ’94.  Not the windstorm of ’03.  Nothing.  When policemen, government officials, and teachers flee indoors for refuge from the storm, Margaret bravely opens the rickety door to her modest South Jersey home to have a smoke.

Shielded by nothing more than a bathrobe and a ratty, old pair of slippers, Margaret proves that she is one of the dedicated ones.  It is not an innocent dedication, however.  No, it is a dedication fueled by an uncontrollable desire for the sweet nectar of nicotine.  But even though it’s a guilty addiction, it is precisely what makes the dedication so strong.  It makes Margaret, and the millions of other people entangled in a love affair with tobacco sticks, the most dedicated humans on earth.

View Comments / Dec 02.08 / Tobacco / by Ben Cheney