No better way to break the ice with a stranger than tobacco.
And they don't have to be the same sex, age, wage bracket, race, sexual orientation, religion or political persuasion for one to enjoy tobacco with them. I don't reckon alcohol or cannabis,by themselves,
quite cut it in this respect.
Hell, soldiers cheerfully share their tobacco with enemy prisoners,who had been trying to kill them just a few hours earlier...
"Later, Orwell shows that camaraderie among smokers apparently trumps the ideologies that the [Spanish] war is being fought over, as he shares tobacco with a wounded Assault Guard, part of an outfit Orwell had battled against.
He was friendly and gave me cigarettes. I said: In Barcelona we should have been shooting one another, and we laughed over this.
http://www.popmatters.com/feature/94064-bumming-smokes-in-paris-and-london-orwells-obsession-with-tobacco/P4/I do sometimes wonder what the subtle effects on society will be with the elimination of the social use of tobacco - something that has been part of the fabric of the west ,since Columbus and the first contact with the natives of America.
