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national institute on drug abuse
nicotine craving and heavy smoking linked to cocaine and heroin use Research conducted by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has found that nicotine addiction seems to be linked to increased craving for illegal drugs among drug abusers who also smoke tobacco.
These are the findings from 2 studies published in the journal Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology. The two studies, said NIDA Director Dr. Alan I. Leshner, "add very compelling behavioral evidence to other research that has been conducted which suggests that there are common characteristics and interactions between tobacco use and opiate and cocaine use. They also suggest that quit smoking programs should be offered as part of other drug treatment programs." "One of our more interesting results was that scripts which elicited craving for tobacco also elicited craving for the subject's drug of choice. This suggests that real-world situations that produce tobacco craving may also result in craving for drugs of abuse. |
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One study, led by Dr. Stephen Heishman at NIDA's Intramural Research
Program, examined the interaction of craving for nicotine and other drugs,
using a technique of "cue-induced craving." It involved female and male
adult smokers who had histories of drug abuse and who were not interested in
giving up smoking. In the 1st part of the study, Eighteen subjects were
requested to listen to scripts-recorded descriptions of scenes with pleasant
(watching children on a sunny beach), unpleasant (a friend asking to borrow
money), or neutral (doing household chores) content. At the same time, some
of the scripts showed people expressing a desire to smoke, while other
scripts did not mention smoking. In the 2nd part of the study.
Twenty four subjects listened to scripts with only positive emotional content (enjoying the beach, talking on the phone with an old acquaintance, or visiting friends). These positive scripts included increasingly more detailed descriptions of tobacco craving-from no mention of smoking to asking the question "how could you really enjoy yourself fully unless you were smoking?" After the subjects listened to the scripts they were asked to rate their craving to smoke and their desire to use other drugs. |
The investigators found that the scripts mentioning smoking and the scripts
containing negative emotional content increased the subjects' experiences of
tobacco craving. And, in the 2nd phase of the study, tobacco craving
increased as the intensity of the craving messages in the scripts increased
The subjects included heavy smokers, participants who did not smoke, and
"chippers" who smoked less than Five cigarettes each day. All of the
participants had been in a methadone treatment program for a minimum of
sixteen weeks. The research scientists evaluated the connection between
tobacco smoking and illicit drug use among the smokers and nonsmokers by
using urine and breath samples from the participants over a Seven day
period. The researchers found that the amount of cocaine and heroin use was
directly related to the level of tobacco use. "The more cigarettes smoked,
the more likely the person was to use illegal drugs," Frosch stated.
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