I grew up on a tobacco farm, Tobacco is a weed. It will grow anywhere. As a crop it is labor intensive, and cigarettes are blends of different kinds of tobacco.
Most of those who smoke would find the tobacco they grow to be pretty coarse compared to cigarettes. The same with chewing tobacco, It is mixed with sugars and other ingredients, but yes. You can chew it right from the leaf.
I was upset when they started outlawing smoking I bars and public places, but now I kind of like going places without my eyes burning and a dry throat from smokers. I have never smoked I suppose because my father and mother never smoked, and I never saw much to the habit.
If this guy has money to buy cigarettes there is no excuse for his being hungry.
When I was a kid fifty years ago, it seemed virtually all adults smoked. I’ve since realized a number of my neighborhood adults didn’t smoke or rarely smoked, but my parents smoked up a storm. The picture I remember most of my mother from my childhood is her taking a deep drag on a cigarette with the other hand on her hip. Papa wasn’t much better. That turned me off ever wanting to smoke. The sad thing is I never noticed a tobacco smell on my clothes as a kid after leaving a smoker’s house. Now when I go in some place where people smoke, the stinky smell is obvious and I have to get into fresh clothes as quick as possible.