Just outside of the doors of Guyot Hall at Princeton University, I collected rain droplets and the remaining tobacco contents from a cigarette butt (one of many in the vicinity) onto a Foldscope slide. There are some trees and plants in this area, but the sidewalks are heavily trafficked by students, faculty, and construction workers. While examining the slides, I felt quite bothered by the stark visual difference between the samples. The raindrop sample was white against the flashlight with small, unidentifiable specks. In contrast, the tobacco sample was a dense, deep brown color (the picture below shows the edge of the sample against the slide background).



All I could think about was how these were quite telling of the way tobacco and cigarettes affect humans. Lung cancer is the third most common type of cancer and leads to the death of about 130,000 people in the U.S. alone each year (source). The slides further portray the all-consuming, suffocating harm that humans pose on the environment on a large scale and also in the context of cigarette butt litter. Cigarette butts are the most commonly littered item, accounting for 20% of all litter (source). They pose a significant danger to the environments they are in, as cigarette filters are made of plastic fibers and they contain toxic ingredients, like arsenic and lead, which can leach into ecosystems and waterways (source).

With all this negativity I was feeling surrounding cigarettes, I thought to do a little research on the tobacco plant itself. I discovered that tobacco leaves have been smoked by humans for around 8,000 years, most notably by Mayan peoples. Additionally, tobacco can be used as an antiseptic, to alleviate headaches, and to induce vomit (source). I learned that nicotine, the addictive ingredient of tobacco, is actually a plant defense. When a tobacco plant is being attacked, it releases nicotine in its leaves, which can be toxic or inhibit digestion for some of its common predators, like leafhoppers (source).

So now I have been thinking about how humans have exploited the tobacco plant because we get addicted to the chemical it happens to use for defense, and we've further made it dangerous when reintroduced into the environment. It seems kind of odd, right? This leads me to questions I find myself returning to time and again: How can we repair our relationship with plants? How can we cultivate and use them in healthy, beneficial ways without exploitation?

(cover photo source)