Tobacco

Tobacco is a plant containing nicotine, a psychoactive chemical which affects the human brain. It is used as a recreational drug and is consumed mainly by smoking in a variety of forms.

Tobacco in Southern Victory
Tobacco is grown both in the US and CS, though Confederate tobacco is widely considered to be of far superior quality. It is most commonly made into cigarettes. Tobacco use is popular throughout the North American continent but is religiously proscribed by the Mormons.

Tobacco in Worldwar
Tobacco use was common the world over when the Race's Conquest Fleet arrived on Earth in 1942. The ensuing war disrupted tobacco supplies all over the world, and tobacco products (the most popular of these being cigarettes) were regularly available only in areas where tobacco was grown.

After the war, tobacco supplies returned to normal both in independent human powers and in the Race's colonies, and world tobacco consumption returned to prewar levels. The Race's doctors determined that tobacco was carcinogeninc, but this only slightly diminished the plant's popularity, mainly among human medical professionals. This much perplexed the Race, whose most popular recreational drug, ginger, had no such deleterious health effects,

Tobacco in Ruled Britannia
Tobacco was introduced to Europe from the New World by Spanish explorers and colonists. It was smoked in pipes and was popular among both Spaniards and Englishmen. Both Lope de Vega and Christopher Marlowe were very fond of tobacco; Marlowe once blasphemously commented that the Catholic sacrament of the Eucharist could be improved if tobacco replaced the bread and wine as its physical medium. However, William Shakespeare found it disgusting.