Smoking is a procedure in which a substance, generally tobacco and/or cannabis, is burned and the smoke is tasted or inhaled. This is primarily practiced as a method of administration for recreational drug use, as combustion releases the active substances in drugs such as nicotine and makes them accessible for absorption through the lungs. It can also be done as a part of rituals, to induce trances and spiritual enlightenment.

There are a lot of types tobacco cultivars which are made into a wide variety of mixtures and brands. Tobacco is often marketed flavored, often with various fruit flavors, something which is

mainly popular for use with water pipes, such as hookahs.

Inhaling the vaporized gas form of compounds into the lungs is a swift and very suitable way of transporting drugs into the bloodstream, as the gas diffuses directly into the pulmonary vein, then into the heart and from there to the brain and affects the user within less than a second of the first inhalation. This can be used to provide useful medicines as well as recreational drugs such as aerosols, consisting of tiny droplets of a medication, or as gas produced by burning plant material with a psychoactive substance or pure forms of the substance itself.

The historical past of smoking can be dated to as early as 5000 BC, and has been documented in many different societies across the world. Early smoking evolved in association with religious ceremonies; as offerings to gods, in cleansing worships or to allow shamans and priests to alter their minds for aims of divination or spiritual enlightenment. After the European and conquest of the Americans, the practice of smoking tobacco quickly spread to the rest of the

world. In regions like India and Sub-Saharan Africa, it merged with existing practices of smoking. In Europe, it introduced a new type of social activity and a form of drug intake which previously had been not known.

By the mid-17th century every major civilization had been convinced to tobacco smoking and in many cases had already adopted it into the native culture. A cigarette is a tiny roll of fine cut tobacco leaves encased in a cylinder of thin paper for smoking. The cigarette is inflamed at one end and allowed to smolder. Its smoke is inhaled from the other end, which is held in or to the mouth. Most modern manufactured cigarettes are filtered and include reconstituted tobacco and other additives. The paper for holding the tobacco blend may vary in porosity to permit ventilation of the burning ember or contain materials that control the burning rate of the cigarette and stability of the released ash.

The word Cigar comes, through the Spanish and Portuguese word cigarro .It is also derived from the from the Mayan word siyar, meaning "to smoke rolled tobacco leaves". Smoking has been recognized into culture, in various art forms, and has developed many distinct, mutually exclusive, meanings depending on time, place and the practitioners of smoking. In the 18th century smoking became far more sparse in painting as the elegant practice of taking snuff became popular.

Smoking a pipe was again relegated to portraits of lowly people and country folk and the refined sniffing of shredded tobacco followed by sneezing was rare in art.Smoking appeared often in the exotic portraits influenced by Orientalism.

Cigarettes have been attested in Central America around the 9th century in the form of reeds and smoking tubes. The Maya, and later the Aztecs, smoked tobacco and various psychoactive drugs in religious traditions and

frequently depicted priests and deities smoking on pottery and temple engravings. The cigarette and the cigar were the most common methods of smoking in the Caribbean, Mexico and Central and South America until recent times. By 1830, the cigarette had crossed into France, where it received the name cigarette; and in 1845, the French state tobacco monopoly began manufacturing them. The widespread smoking of cigarettes in the Western world is largely a 20th century phenomenon by 2011.

The significance of tobacco to soldiers was early on recognized as something that could not be ignored by commanders. By the 17th century allowances of tobacco were a standard part of the naval rations of many nations and by World War I cigarette manufacturers and governments collaborated in securing tobacco and cigarette allowances to soldiers in the field. It was asserted that regular use of tobacco while under duress would not only calm the soldiers, but allow them to withstand greater difficulty.

The term cigarette, as frequently used, refers to a tobacco cigarette but can apply to similar devices containing other herbs, such as cloves or cannabis. A cigarette is distinctive from a cigar by its smaller size, use of processed leaf, and paper wrapping, which is normally white, though other colors are occasionally available. Cigars are generally composed entirely of whole-leaf tobacco.

There have been few examples of tobacco in music in early modern times. From the early 20th century and onwards smoking has been closely associated with popular music. Another form of modern popular music that has been closely associated with cannabis smoking is reggae, a style of music that started in Jamaica in the late 1950s and early 60s.

Now a days, online purchase of cigarettes of popular brands is more prevailing. Many people have even an inclination to electronic cigars,in which actual cigarettes are not burnt.