Throughout this organised survey of LA gangs - with maps graffiti and news - the whiff of a lifestyle vicariously experienced

Throughout this organised survey of LA gangs - with maps, graffiti and news - the whiff of a lifestyle vicariously experienced is unavoidable.. James I called tobacco "that vile and loathsome weed". Little did he realise that in the 20th century it would become the world's most profitable consumer product, responsible for a $200 billion global industry. Tobacco Wars, a new three-part documentary from BBC1, traces our love affair with what Dennis Potter once memorably described as a "tube of delight": the cigarette. The product has a sexual allure.

Fetishists will pay pounds 27.50 for a video of a woman smoking, while Michael Buerk (right), the series presenter and a former smoker, recalls as a youngster thinking that cigarettes made him seem cooler. "I remember sitting in front of the mirror in the bedroom and smoking - wondering how it looked, whether it really did look the same as in the James Bond movies."He also smoked while trying to chat up girls "It was all part of the apparatus," he says. "The girls probably thought I was a complete plonker, but I felt more mature."Now we know cigarettes will give you more than sex appeal. It is reckoned that they are the largest cause of preventable deaths this century, and around 500 million people have died in the past 100 years through smoking- related illnesses.When the possibility that smoking could be harmful was first mooted in the 1950s, the tobacco industry went into spin overdrive. Tony van den Bergh, a former tobacco executive, recounts that instead of asking how to make cigarettes safer, the industry reaction was: "How can we rubbish this [research]?"The companies then launched the largest and most expensive PR campaign in history. "There were pacts made between the devil and the unimaginable," says Dr Gary Huber, a former research scientist for the tobacco industry.

"Its intent was to create disinformation."The industry commissioned scientific research, but only chose to release results that were favourable. "The industry reports on their research are magnificent works of fiction," says Van den Bergh. "We did research in strait-jackets, so that people were limited in how far they could research. If they came to a certain point which would reflect badly on the tobacco industry, it came to an end."The tobacco companies soon started pouring much more money into advertising than they ever spent on research. "The aim of advertising is not only to sell cigarettes, it is to lull people's fears," admits Fritz Gahagan, a former market research executive "Deceptive? Of course it's deceptive. What are we going to do? Say 'go out and buy our product - it'll kill you'?"It was also never in a government's interest to crack down on these companies; in the mid-1950s, for instance, revenue from the tobacco companies was underwriting most of the Welfare State in the UK.The industry - never short of a bob or two - has continued to wield political power.