can tobbaco smoke kill a tree

goblues71-ga,

The short answer to your question is, "No, tobacco smoke cannot kill a
tree." The smoke issuing from a lit cigarette under a full-grown tree
would have a negligible affect on that tree. The biggest danger to
said tree would be if the smoker left the lit cigarette behind and it
started the tree on fire.

Even if the tree were very young, i.e. a seedling, exposure to
tobacco-based smoke for a few minutes would not kill it, assuming it's
in an open-air environment.

It is known that plants in indoor environments do filter pollutants,
such as those found in ciggarette smoke, out of the air. From this
Virginia Tech website
 
[ http://www.ext.vt.edu/departments/envirohort/articles/misc/plntclar.html
]:

"Through an in-depth study sponsored by NASA, it was determined that
indoor plants in a closed, controlled environment were able to extract
pollutants from the air."

So, if the plant was small enough relative to the pollutant source
(say 1,000 cigarettes burning for a week), it would eventually kill
the plant. However, a single cigarette burning under a full-grown
tree, outside, would have no affect on that tree's health.

Google search strategy:
Keywords:
"tobacco smoke affect on trees":
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&q=tobacco+smoke+affect+on+trees&spell=1
,

"smoke pollutant on trees":
://www.google.com/search?q=smoke+pollutant+on+trees&btnG=Google+Search&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off

I hope this helps. Good luck in continuing your inquiries!

Sincerely,

omniscientbeing-ga
Google Answers Researcher

One must not forget the severe deforestation that occurs because
ordinary trees are used for 'curing' of tobacco- I think the number is
-for every 1000 cigarettes made one tree is burnt.
In addition, thousands of trees felled for making the paper for
rolling the cigarette, to make the packet, carton, advertisements,
billboards, and ads in newspapers and magazines....
Furthermore, trees are felled for cremation of some of the 4-5 million
people who die from smoking every year...
So smoking does kill tress- hundreds of thousands of them...

The tree may actually derive some benefit from this practice. 
Nicotine is extremely toxic, particularly to insects.  In essence,
smoking under a tree would be a form of fumigation.