120 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH 2002 VOL. 26 NO. 2
Historical and cultural roots of tobacco use among
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
Maggie Brady
Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, Australian National University,
Australian Capital Territory
Smoking is now more common
among Indigenous people than
among non-Indigenous people in
Australia – almost double the national rate.1
Tobacco is also ingested in conjunction with
cannabis.2 Torres Strait Islanders are signif i-
cantly less likely to smoke than are Aborigi-
nal people. Almost one-third of Aboriginal
respondents to a survey in 1994 believed that
it was safe to smoke a pack of cigarettes a
day, and many Indigenous health workers are
smokers.3 Smoking is an important risk fac-
tor for a variety of diseases and conditions,
particularly circulatory disease, respirator y
disease, cancer and low birth weight. Sig-
nificantly, it is these conditions that are ma-
jor factors in the observed disparity in health
between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal
Australians; deaths from respirator y disease
among Aboriginal people are five to six
times greater than for non-Aboriginal peo-
ple.4
Providers of public health interventions
into smoking (and other drug uses) in In-
digenous populations hav e a complex series
of underlying historical and social issues to
take into consideration. For example, there
is debate about the supposed root causes of
drug and alcohol misuse among Indigenous
people, including the argument that exces-
sive use of substances can be explained by
their absence prior to contact with outsid-
ers, or to the lack of pre-contact social rules
constraining their use. In the case of alco-
hol, many commentators believe that con-
temporary high rates of consumption occur
because Aborigines had no traditional
knowledge of intoxicating beverages.5,6
Abstract
Tobacco smoking has been identified as a
major contributor to the high morbidity and
mortality rates of Aborigines and Torres
Strait Islanders. After years of inattention,
smoking cessation projects designed for
Indigenous Australians are beginning to
emerge. Dealing successfully with smoking
cessation would be enhanced by an
understanding of the long-standing
historical, social and cultural antecedents to
present-day usage of tobacco. This paper
provides a brief account of the historical
precursors to present-day patterns of
tobacco use among Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander people. Historical records
and mission documents, together with
ethnographic accounts, suggest that
Indigenous tobacco use today
demonstrates strong continuity with past
patterns and styles of use. These sources
also reveal that Europeans deliberately
exploited Aboriginal addiction to nicotine.
(
Aust N Z J Public Health
2002; 26: 116-120)
Correspondence to:
Maggie Brady, Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, Hanna Neumann Building #21,
The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200. Fax: (02) 6125 2789;
e-mail: maggie.brady@anu.edu.au
Submitted: April 2001
Revision requested: July 2001
Accepted: Februar y 2002
Others have suggested that contemporary
alcohol misuse is a reaction to the restric-
tion of alcohol during prohibition.7 In addi-
tion, social scientists propose that the more
a substance is used to signify selection and
exclusion, then the more it might be expected
to appear among those who are e xcluded.8
In the case of tobacco, however, all these
arguments founder. Aboriginal people had
long used indigenous sources of tobacco and
other mood-altering drugs before contact. Far
from being denied the use of tobacco, Abo-
rigines and Tor res Strait Islanders were will-
ingly provided with tobacco products by
Europeans and by visitors from South-East
Asia. Tobacco was used as payment for la-
bour and was an acceptable item of exchange
for intellectual and cultural property. It was
even provided free as part of official gov-
ernment rations. Introduced tobacco became
highly prized, and is now embedded in the
sociability and exchanges of everyday life
for thousands of Aborigines and Torres Strait
Islanders.
It is now well established that most of the
convicts, marines, soldiers and settlers of
colonial Australia were heavy users of alco-
hol.9 Less frequently we are told that they
were also heavy users of tobacco. In 1819, it
was reported that every second adult (Brit-
ish) male was addicted to tobacco.10 During
the invasion of the continent, tobacco, alco-
hol and opium were used to pacify and
exploit the Indigenous owners of the land,
but tobacco came to hold a dominant posi-
tion in this endeavour. The Indigenous
populations already made use of naturally
occurring, regionally specific drug
Health Inequalities Article
