Cigarettes

From Wittypedia

Cigarettes, fags, ciggies, death-tubes - whatever you call them it is generally accepted that smoking looks cool. Independant studies carried out by philanthropic tabacco companies conclusively prove that it is actually benefitial to smoke - making you more desirable to the opposite sex, decreasing lung capacity - thereby making you look thinner, giving your fingers and teeth an alluring yellow shade and causing many fatal diseases thereby allowing you to more accurately predict the time of your death.

Smoking was discovered in the early 8th century but it wasn't until tabacco was brought to England by Sir Walter Raleigh (who also invented bikes) that they had something to fill the tubes of paper with. Nobody is quite sure what people did with their hands up until that point but chances are it lead to hairy palms.