![]() With an abusable drug, the rate of self-administration is regular, says Dr. One delivers the drug, the other the saline, but the subject does not know which is which. They are free to press two unmarked levers. The classical experiment to test for self-administration involves humans or animals connected intravenously to both a source of the drug and to a saline solution. People take aspirin for a headache, but when the pain is gone, they stop taking the drug. It also binds to white blood cells and is carried to most tissues throughout the body.Īn addictive drug of abuse is defined as one that will be repeatedly self-administered, even though there is no medical reason for it. Nicotine affects a major neurotransmitter system that is involved in the very conduction of nerve signals, memory and other critical functions. Heroin attaches to the brain's natural painkilling receptors. What is toxic to the insect, however, is pleasurable to the human when taken in the tiny amounts found in cigarettes.Īlkaloids exert their effects by binding to receptors in the brain and other nerve tissue. It so happens that humans have the same neurotransmitters. The alkaloid kills insects by disrupting their neurotransmitters, substances released by the bug's activated nerve cells. LIKE HEROIN, NICOTINE IS AN alkaloid found in plants. Sharon Hall, a psychology professor whose research at the University of California's San Francisco medical school centers on methods of curtailing drug abuse. ''Heroin addicts say it is easier to give up dope than it is to give up smoking,'' says Dr. They affect the nervous system through different routes, but their end results are similar: people become dependent on them. Heroin, cocaine, alcohol, amphetamines and nicotine, it turns out, have many things in common. It stems from extensive modern research into the nature of drugs of abuse, made possible through the development of highly specific testing equipment. This finding has been long believed but only recently proved through tests that meet today's scientific standards. Henningfield, that smoking is a subset of compulsive behavior in which the controlling factor, nicotine, profoundly affects the smoker's central nervous system, producing pleasurable effects, dependency and, when it is taken away, withdrawal. Not smoking was apparently just a matter of willpower. When the first warnings about tobacco were published more than 20 years ago, many experts thought that smoking was ''no different than compulsive potato chip eating,'' says Dr. Jack Henningfield, who specializes in the biology of dependence and abuse potential at the Addiction Research Center of the National Institute on Drug Abuse in Baltimore. ''The known enemy is more easily overcome,'' says Dr. New strategies for quitting, based on a deeper understanding of the addiction, are in the wings. Those still addicted tend to smoke more cigarettes, but they should not lose hope. Since the first Surgeon General's report on smoking in 1964, about 37 million Americans have quit. The medical bill for individuals with fatal illnesses related to smoking has been estimated at $60 million a day, according to a 1985 study by the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment. Tobacco use is the number one preventable cause of illness and death in the United States. Its hooks go deep, involving complex physiological and psychological mechanisms that drive and maintain smoking behavior and that even produce some ''good'' effects, such as improved performance on intellectual, computational and stressful tasks. Scientists have found, for instance, that nicotine is as addictive as heroin, cocaine or amphetamines, and for most people more addictive than alcohol. Interdisciplinary research in pharmacology, psychology, physiology and neurobiology is just beginning to shed light on the incredible hold that tobacco has on people. Are smokers more weak-willed than nonsmokers or former smokers? Or do millions of people continue to smoke for reasons more powerful than previously imagined? What, for example, could possess a heart attack victim to light up a cigarette the moment he is wheeled out of the coronary care unit? Yet, after repeated attempts to give up smoking, they find that they cannot control this one, seemingly uncomplicated, aspect of their behavior. Many smokers are highly intelligent people with impressive levels of control over institutions, budgets, employees and political affairs. Increasingly aware that their addiction is also harmful to their children and co-workers, they continue to puff away on 570 billion cigarettes a year. DESPITE OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE that tobacco is destroying their health and shortening their lives, 53 million Americans continue to smoke.
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