Alcohol has enormous benefits over smoking and has pretty much been in hand for the entirety of civilization.
If people drink like a normal smoker smokes its considered a problem. If your having a couple morning drinks and taking shot breaks at work people would view that as extreme, yet that was/is a norm for smokers.
The thing is that its not so much explicitly smoking, but cigarettes that are the major problem. Cigarettes have so many additives and distort the natural tobacco to enhance the addiction that they themselves create the bulk of the smoking related issues. Using a natural tobacco product at the same frequency as normal / social drinking wouldn't have nearly the terrible health impacts as what happens to typical cigarette smokers and would likely be seen in a similar vein were it not for the negative attention brought on by cigarettes.
If people drink like a normal smoker smokes its considered a problem. If your having a couple morning drinks and taking shot breaks at work people would view that as extreme, yet that was/is a norm for smokers.
The thing is that its not so much explicitly smoking, but cigarettes that are the major problem. Cigarettes have so many additives and distort the natural tobacco to enhance the addiction that they themselves create the bulk of the smoking related issues. Using a natural tobacco product at the same frequency as normal / social drinking wouldn't have nearly the terrible health impacts as what happens to typical cigarette smokers and would likely be seen in a similar vein were it not for the negative attention brought on by cigarettes.