·
drug addiction
·
withdrawal
syndrome
·
positive
reinforcement
·
negative
reinforcement
·
cue exposure
·
change and stages
·
smoking relapse
·
drug dependence
·
smoking
·
tobacco addiction
Examine the evidence required to address each of these questions:
Does tolerance develop to the effects of tobacco smoking?
What is the evidence for the addictive potential for nicotine?
Is there a correlation between a smoker's blood concentration of
nicotine and his/her smoking behavior?
Does nicotine produce a psychological "reward" (i.e. a positive
reinforcement)?
Does nicotine produce a withdrawal
syndrome?
Is there a relationship between the blood concentration of nicotine and
the symptoms of withdrawal syndrome? How can one measure the degree of
nicotine dependency?
Are there sex differences in addiction liability to nicotine?
The symptoms of nicotine withdrawal are "cured" by another cigarette.
This "cure" is therefore termed a "negative reinforcement". Why?
Which of these (positive or negative reinforcement) do you believe to
be the more important in maintaining tobacco addiction?
How would you explain the phenomenon that some smokers continue to
smoke in the face of known physical and social detriment?
The behavior of smoking is frequently associated with other behaviors
such as coffee or alcohol drinking or after a meal. This association is
termed cue conditioning. Explore the role played by cue conditioning in
tobacco dependence.
The natural history of tobacco
addiction
What is a typical pattern of tobacco uptake, use, cessation attempts,
relapse and final cessation?
What is the 'stages of change' model of smoking cessation?
What does the research literature suggest are the most important
predictors of smoking cessation?
What proportion of smokers quit unaided, and what proportion seek
assistance?
What are the implications of this for population-wide efforts to
increase smoking cessation?
The politics of nicotine "addiction"
There are important legal and political consequences involved in a
determination that nicotine is addictive. The tobacco industry has been
revealed to have a long history of both experimenting with ways to
optimise nicotine addiction and suppressing
this information from government and the public.
In Conclusion:
1.
Tobacco is addictive (i.e. dependence
producing)
2. Nicotine
is involved in this addiction and
3. The
pharmacological and behavioral processes that determine tobacco
addiction are similar to those that determine
addiction to other drugs such as heroin and cocaine.
