[brnaftr184]

Honestly, you might be right. The way that pre-Colombian societies used it was totally different than the methods Europeans adopted upon introduction. And this is kinda interesting because the native cultures had thousands of years of experience with this stuff, and Europeans, even now, have about 500. Now as for scientific rationalism being applied in those communities, nobody can really say, so an argument positing that they did some actuarial science over the subject in such a long trial may or may not be spurious, but the long-range experiment being conducted may well have yielded plain and visible results. Maybe there was a reason they hadn't adopted alternative methods.

"Everything from effigy pipes topped by exquisite animal carvings (used to smoke a variety of tobacco strong enough to induce trance-like states" Graeber, via Goodman et. al - Consuming habits: drugs in history and anthropology

Evidently the Amerindians smoked high doses from pipes, enough to induce a trance-like state. Having made use of pre-rolled filtered Tobacco extensively, I'd surmise they were either using it infrequently, or making themselves use it infrequently. In the first case, they show enough self-restraint to forego daily use, which allowed them to remain sensitive to the drug. In the latter case, they frequently poisoned themselves by indulging in a very high level of consumption - I suspect this would discourage frequent use as the side effect tends to be nausea and sudden onset anxiety. Of course, my perspective on this is limited, as my exposure is largely (near-exclusively) that of commercially treated tobacco with its various additives and mode of transport - paper. They were smoking I imagine largely unprocessed tobacco out of pipes.

Altering the cultural fabric of smoking itself might actually yield better outcomes. I'm not so interested in the topic as to find statistical demonstrations, but I suspect at least a portion of the damage that smokers can be directly attributed to the physical characteristics of the smoke, and the frequency of use. Cooler smoke inhaled through a pipe constructed with a conductive material like ceramic or stone done for ritual purposes might well yield a better social outcome than what our current smoking modality does without infringing on human rights and wholly eschewing the use of tobacco and all of its cultural complement.

Something to think on in any case.