But first - How brainwashed or blind can people really be?

Smokers die early. How is this "truth" established? Like this. If, this year, the average life expectancy is 78 and you die at 77 and smoked, the year you are missing is ATTRIBUTED to smoking, never mind genetics or the other million every day things that could have made you live one year "less".  However, if you lived one year "more", that extra year is NOT attributed to smoking because the ideology says that smoking kills by definition - So it must have been something else that made you live a little longer, but CERTAINLY NOT smoking.

Be that as it may, the hard and "empirical evidence" (no epidemiological attributions needed) shows that the world's oldest are or have been all smokers. To avoid sending the "wrong message" the "right" one being that "smoking kills",  these people are called "exceptions to the rule". But are they all exceptions to that rule, or is it just the rule that is flawed by ideology and beliefs?

There seems to be a whole lot of rules in our Brave New World based on flawed ideology, outright deceptions and beliefs inculcated by mass media propaganda and institutionalized brainwashing that most people simply accept at face value.

Perhaps no other issue except perhaps "Global Warming" has been as relentlessly propagandized as the idea  that smoking tobacco is one of the most toxic substances ever ingested by mankind. To think otherwise is madness. EVERYONE knows, tobacco smoking kills!  And even for those who regard conventional wisdom as suspect or downright dishonest, accepting the idea that tobacco may not be as bad as we've all been told to believe is a difficult idea to come to terms with.
This information I found at the Hawaiian Libertarian - I thought an interesting way to look at how people can be so easily controlled over time with non-stop money making propaganda. The facts are, the worlds oldest living people by far were users of tobacco. Could this fact have something to do with the benefits of tobacco?

Tobacco history

Most people today and throughout history have always hated smoking. In early times in certain parts of the world, smoking and alcohol consumption was seen by many as evil. People in civilizations throughout the world have smoked for the same reasons they consumed alcohol. For relaxation and personal enjoyment. Most people today with the exception of perhaps the last government controlled educated generation or two, know what happened in 1919 through 1932 with the prohibition on alcohol consumption. This prohibition was costly to the lives of millions in countless ways. It brought out the criminal element in boot legging and unhealthy rot gut alcohol destroying many lives in numerous ways.

The first  European contact with tobacco seems to be in 1492, when Columbus and fellow explorer Rodriguo de Jerez a month later in Cuba saw natives smoking. That very same day, Rodriguo took his first puff and found it very relaxing, just as the locals had assured him it would be. This was an important occasion, because Rodriguo de Jerez discovered what the Cubans and native Americans had known for many centuries, that smoking is not only relaxing but reduced stress and it also seemed to cure certain minor ailments. When he returned home, Rodriguo proudly lit a cigar in the street, and was promptly arrested and imprisoned for three years by the horrified Spanish Inquisition. Rodriguo thus became the first victim of the anti-smoking lobbies.
And we think we have busybodies today that know what's best for us?

But Rodriguo de Jerez was only one in literally millions since that suffered the wrath of those that know what's best for others and believe they have a mandate to control others lives.

The Indians of North America and Central America had been chewing and smoking the tobacco plant in religious rituals since around 5000 BC, believing it to be a gift from God with power to drive out evil spirits. North American Indians had some of the oldest life expectancies and were some of the tallest people in the world at the time. Tobacco  was used medicinally for many physical ailments. Over time, men of higher status began to use it recreationally and to grease the wheels of social interaction and to ease tensions. The natives used a pipe they called a toboca derived from the Spanish word Tobacco.

From the beginning in the new world, there were those that were attracted to tobacco and those who found both the smell and the habit disgusting. No one seems to know if Columbus himself tried tobacco, but he apparently did not like the looks of it. But Columbus was a smart person. He immediately noticed that it relieved tiredness and hunger among his sailors, aided relaxation and was a habit that once started was not easy to give up.

As would be expected, the Catholic church jumped in and associated tobacco with evil since it was used by what they "judged" as Godless Indians.

In Spain under Ferdinand and Isabella, it was not a good place to be if practicing pagan habits such as smoking. With such violent opposition to tobacco use, it remained only a strange curiosity for many years. Mostly grown on the other side of a large ocean, it was hard to find and it was difficult to cultivate. It was not until the middle of the 16th century after many transatlantic voyages that tobacco generated any real interest.

In the new world, tobacco was now in plentiful supply and many European settlers smoked like crazy.

But as today, there were those that found it disagreeable. Gonzalo Fernadez de Oviedo Valdes went to the west indies in 1514 and was shocked to find that tobacco use had taken hold even among Christians. What a shock. In 1527 another observer noted that Indians who smoked were a species of intoxication and called it a disgusting habit. Millions of people since have called it worse.

In Portugal, then in Spain and France, despite complaints of stench, tobacco began to find its way into the population because of its supposed curative effects.

Magellan introduced it to India and China via the Philippines in the 1560's and physicians found themselves intrigued by the plant wherever they came across it. An observer in 1557 wrote: They say it is good to drive forth and consume the moisture in the head. When taken this way, it's possible to endure hunger and thirst for some time.

In 1571, the Seville physician Nickolas Monardes wrote what amounted to a love letter to tobacco where he claimed more than twenty medical ailments could be cured by tobacco.

In 1560, Jean Nicot a French diplomat who spent a lot of time in Portugal, was instrumental in bringing tobacco to Europe. Nicot advised the ageing Catherine de Medici - by this time Frances Queen Mother to take snuff for the good of her health. She and her circle became enthusiastic snuffers and Catherine decreed that tobacco be known as Herba Regina. Nicot was so influential and persuasive in popularizing tobacco that his surname was used when its active ingredient  "Nicotine" was discovered, isolated and named in 1828.

Most smoking was confined to sailors and settlers until the 1560's when the practice was introduced to England by Sir John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake. In the 1580's, Drake recommended it to Sir Walter Raleigh who, in turn, became a great advocate of tobacco.

The upper echelons of the Elizabethan society perhaps the queen herself smoked tobacco recreationally and the lower orders imitated them.  By the end of the century, smoking most often was done through a long stem pipe and was common among all sections of English society and was beginning to spread through mainland Europe and into parts of Asia.

By 1595, Anthony Chutes published a book "Tobacco" in the English language. He claimed on behalf of the herb and recommended it as a remedy for coughs, rheum in the stomach, head and eyes. He apparently believed that just about anything could be helped with moderate use of tobacco.

A few years later, Henry Buttes, in "Dyets Dry Dinner", wrote that tobacco smoking benefits the throat, lungs and stomach and was particularly good for the head and chest. Others endorsed it for gonorrhea and plague.

Others suggested that smoking was destroying a person's brain to the point of wide-eyed delusion.

When an outbreak of plague hit a community as it often did in medieval times, it was common among the towns people to light bonfires so that through a combination of smoke and heat the pestilence would be banished. In this context, the notion that the body could be cleansed and fumigated by inhaling smoke was not so extraordinary.

As in all, societies as it is today, there was plenty of opposition to smoking. William Shalespeare never mentioned tobacco in his plays. Perhaps he didn't want to displease King James I, but if so, he couldn't have had anything against smoking otherwise he would surely have furthered favor with the king by attacking it.

Another great play write had much stronger views on tobacco. Ben Johnson said in 1621 that it was good for nothing but to choke a man and fill him full of smoke and embers. England's smokers did not take this lying down. A "Defense of Tobacco" was soon published as a counter to the notion that tobacco was bad. He chose to publish this book anonymously but men had lost their heads for less.

He questioned the kings assertion that smokers were full of soot, saying that there was no comparison between a man and a pipe, and challenged him to examine the throats and noses of smokers. If he did, the author promised King James would find them as clean mouthed and throated as any man alive.

Edmund Gardiner went further in 1610, making tobacco sound more like a psychedelic drug that opened the doors of perception when he asserted that through tobacco we may see the wonderful works of God.

Cancer at the time was barely recognized and even less understood. But more people than not of course hated tobacco. It was for the most part as is today, the smell, and the warnings of health problems and of course some type of evil.

King James hated tobacco. Tobacco had become so popular, that as King he knew he could simply make it illegal. The country was also taking in tons of imported tobacco. There was a lot of money involved. He was faced with a dilemma that has bothered many of likeminded ever since throughout history to the present. He knew the populous would ignore anti-smoking laws and that it would be rather difficult if not impractical to try and enforce them.

But King James was way ahead of his time. Faced with the problem that outlawing tobacco would cause, he simply decided to tax it. Less people would smoke as is the case today in modern times, and he undoubtedly believed he would be saving the people from this terrible disgusting habit.

Nothing ever really changes throughout history. We think we're all so advanced today.

He raised the tax on tobacco a whopping 4000%. He figured this would reduce consumption. This all proved to be a little much for the English smokers.

Smuggling rose and farmers grew tobacco in huge quantities. So heavy was the trade in contraband that despite the massive tax rise, the treasury found itself receiving less revenue from tobacco duty than it had before. So, like any good ruler, or modern day politician, he reversed his decision and lowered the tax while banning tobacco farming at home. In 1624 he made the tobacco industry a royal monopoly. Are we close to this in America today?
Yah - let's have a government monopoly on tobacco. How about a government with real control over our lives where the government simply owns the tobacco industry?

Actually,  that was once suggested by Sir Richard Doll one of the leading anti-smoking activists in the 20th century.

Then again, we have Louis XIII of France who saw smokers as a bountiful source of revenue and placed a duty of 30 sols (something like 20 francs) on every pound of tobacco imported. Then again, his son and heir Louis XIV was a more vocal opponent of smoking and would have liked to prohibit it entirely, but he could not afford to sacrifice the money that tobacco added to his coffers.

As today, the political class is always the same. Where money is involved, the health of the people is always secondary. There is nothing new even hundreds of years later.

In other parts of the world, smokers faced much worse than paying more in sin taxes. The first half of the 17th century, draconian laws were brought in to eliminate tobacco use from Sicily to China. The czar of Russia in 1634 banned tobacco completely blaming it for a series of fires in the community.
He complained that people were spending there last pennies on tobacco instead of food, and were filling the churches with smoke.
First offenders were flogged and had their nostrils slit. Those caught a second time were executed. Russians today, are some of the biggest smoker in the world.

In 1644, the Chinese emperor Chongzhen banned smoking and ordered that tobacco importers be beheaded. The Chinese today are also some of the biggest users of tobacco in the world.

In Japan, tobacco was banned as soon as it was introduced by the English at the dawn of the 17th century. The penalty for using it was death.

Funny how things change - Japan today has one of the world's highest percentage of smokers. In 2011, 44.3 percent of males smoked. The USA was approximately 26 percent. The Japanese had then a life expectancy of approximately 4.9 years longer than USA citizens. That's a lot of years. They had a whopping 37 percent less deaths from lung cancer and 61 percent less deaths from coronary heart disease than American citizens. But what we have been told from the beginning is that tobacco is the cause of these premature deaths? 

Muslims hated tobacco, and said it was a Christian thing. Rulers in many countries made tobacco illegal. In Hindustan, the Mogul emperor Jahangir ordered it against the law for apparent health reasons and offenders would have their lips slit. His brother, the ruler of Persia, Shah Abbas, punished both smokers and tobacco merchants with death, saying that tobacco was no different than the dung of horses. After his death, his son continued the war on smokers, sentencing them to be executed by having molten lead poured down their throats.

In Turkey, the fanatical Murad IV banned smoking after a fire in Constantinople and had offenders gruesomely executed, on one occasion having twenty army officers tortured to death for using tobacco.

In North American, it wasn't as bad as in many parts of the world. When the Puritan element came to dominate the politics of New England in the 1620s, those that tried to grow tobacco were quickly shut down. Massachusetts banned smoking in public places. Connecticut only allowed its residents to smoke in their own home, and even then, just once a day. Smokers had to be 20 years of age, be alone and be in possession of a smoking license.

The governor of New Amsterdam (now known as New York) banned smoking entirely in 1638, and in 1676 it became a crime for residence of New France (now known as Canada) to smoke or carry tobacco in the streets.

Then Sicily criminalized smoking, but the law was ignored to such a degree that a rumor was started that the Turks had poisoned the tobacco imports in order to get people to stop smoking. In Italy today, the male smoking rate is approximately 45% higher than in the U.S. They have a life expectancy of 3.4 years longer than U.S. citizens.

Anyone who truly looks at history, will see clearly that nothing really ever changes.

Even in Switzerland, where anti-smoking laws came about through a democratic process, tobacco use flourished. Switzerland today still smokes more than U.S. citizens with a reduction in heart disease deaths of about 15%, and reduction in Lung cancer deaths of about 40%. They also have a life expectancy in 2014 of 83.4 years. The U.S. life expectancy in 2014 was only 79.3 years.

The unintended consequences of China's ban on tobacco was an upsurge in smoking opium. Anger of the no smoking laws apparently caused the peasantry at one point to storm the Imperial palace a couple years later and caused the law to be reversed.

The list goes on and on of nations throughout the world trying to stop the populous from smoking.
By 1700, most countries had abandoned criminalization in favor of taxation. What else is new one might ask. Today taxes collected on tobacco is in the tens of billions of dollars from federal to state levels.

There was still as today, countless numbers of people that just did not want to be inconvenienced by the smell of tobacco. In 1658, a Jesuit priest described smoking as a dry drunkenness. He said what difference is there between a smoker and a suicide except that the one takes longer to kill him that the other.

Then in 1702, the English navy plundered thousands of barrels of snuff. It's use sky rocketed. They claimed it cured among many other things, bronchitis, consumption and apoplexy. One formerly blind man was quoted as saying:

On taking one small pinch, my eyes opened. I am now 96, can read the smallest type without glasses by moonlight, and drink barrels of the most potent beverages without a dream of a headache. 

British soldiers by 1808 - 1814, found that their clay pipes broke too easily. Cigars quickly became popular.

In the 19th century, we had much of what we have today. Campaigns began for such diverse causes as Vegetarianism, Sunday observance, Healthy living and Animal rights. Temperance and teetotalism became the dominate reforming movements of the age, and a desire by groups of self-righteous DoGooders to save the working classes from impoverished lives and an early death. History always repeats itself particularly when people don't know it.

Many at the time began to jump on the band wagon once again to save the people from tobacco.
Dr. Robert Welch spoke out against tobacco in a speech to the "Total Abstinence Society" and in an article in the "Temperance Advocate" and endorsed the view that smoking went hand and hand with drinking alcohol.

In 1853 in Britain the "anti-tobacco Society" was formed by Canon Stowell and Thomas Reynolds.