Still, Hughes acknowledges that nicotine differs from such drugs of abuse as alcohol, heroin and cocaine. Most obviously, it doesn't cause intoxication, so you can't tell whether someone is on it. Public discussions of nicotine addiction, he says, often get "confused" on this score -- with a bit of help from tobacco companies, which fear having their product branded "addictive."
Although the U.S. Office of the Surgeon General did not dwell on the addictive nature of nicotine until its 1988 report on smoking and health, University of California cardiologist Stanton Glantz charges that the cigarette companies have long known about the drug's capacity for hooking smokers. "The evidence that nicotine was addictive was convincing to Brown & Williamson in 1963," he says, referring to internal documents he described in the newly published book The Cigarette Papers.
Although the tobacco companies have insisted that addictive drugs all produce intoxication, and therefore nicotine does not qualify, Hughes counters that "intoxication is not the center of the problem. Dependence -- the inability to stop -- is at the core."
Ironically, Hughes says this inability to intoxicate could actually boost nicotine's potential for causing dependence, since "you can take nicotine many times and still work, still function."
Oddly, the numbers show that nicotine is more likely to entrap users than addictive drugs that do cause intoxication. "If 100 people experiment with alcohol or cocaine, about 10 percent will become addicted," Hughes says, versus 20 to 25 percent of those who take nicotine. "So experimenting with nicotine is more likely to lead to dependence. Yet we have it reversed in our cultural norms," which stigmatize alcohol and cocaine more than cigarettes.
Hughes points to yet another reason why nicotine is likely to produce dependence, particularly among the young: the drug's ability to "do so many things in so many situations." Since many of these effects -- controlling hunger, concentration, anger and mood -- are exactly what many adolescents seek, and since this "drug can do this every single time, quickly and reliably, it's no wonder kids take up smoking."
Options, options...
You could jump ahead to our article on a possible new addictive mechanism for cigarettes.
If you've just tuned in on the debate over cigarette or health, you may be wondering why everybody's so steamed up. Need some answers? Fire up our fumin' fact sheet.
 |
 |
 |
 |
There are 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 documents. (Glossary | Bibliography)