A Counterblaste to Tobacco

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Title page

Template:Short description A Counterblaste to Tobacco is a treatise written by King James VI and I in 1604. In it he expresses his distaste for tobacco and tobacco-smoking.<ref name="thecompleteguide">Steve Luck, The Complete Guide to Cigars: An Illustrated Guide to the World's Finest Cigars, Bath, UK: Parragon, p. 13</ref> It is probably the earliest anti-smoking publication known.

Style and contentEdit

It is written in Early Modern English and refers to medical theories of the time (e.g. the four humours).<ref name=counterblaste>A Counterblaste to Tobacco (retrieved February 22, 2008)</ref> In it James blames the Native Americans for bringing tobacco to Europe, complains about passive smoking, warns of dangers to the lungs, and decries tobacco's odour as "hatefull to the nose."<ref name=counterblaste/>

Effects and legacyEdit

James's dislike of tobacco led him in 1604Template:R to authorise Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset, to levy an excise tax and tariff of six shillings and eight pence per pound of tobacco imported,<ref>Commissio pro Tobacco, James I, 1616</ref> or £1 per three pounds, a large sum of money for the time. This would be £90 per pound in 2024, or £198 per kilogramme.<ref>Tobacco Price Inquiry - March 2022 (Slideshow) USDA, National Agricultural Statistics Service.</ref>

Because of the persistently high demand for tobacco in England and the negative effects on the economies of the American colonies, the king in 1624 instead created a royal monopoly for the crop.<ref name="ley196512">Template:Cite magazine</ref> 150 years later the British utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham would cite A Counterblaste to Tobacco as an example of antipathy run wild.<ref name=counterblaste/>