Before people start smoking they have a choice, but once you are a smoker that choice goes and you then become an addict. Smoking is the inhalation and exhalation of the fumes of burning tobacco. The dried leaves of plants are smoked in a pipe or in cigar form, but mostly in cigarettes. European explores arriving in the western hemisphere observed native American smoking leaves of the tobacco plant in pipes, and the practice was introduced onto England in the 1500’s. The general attitude was that smoking relieved tension and produced no ill effects. Epidemiologists soon noticed that lung cancer was on the increase. The public at large was ignorant to this fact. At first the medical prof