Lowering Nicotine in Cigarettes Would Make Them Non-Addictive

Scientists have found another way to help people stop smoking. If the amount of nicotine in cigarettes were reduced, it would facilitate people smoking less and finding it easier to quit smoking. Rather than make a dramatic change at once, by providing cigarettes with a nicotine content that was gradually reduced, people had a much easier time quitting smoking, according to a recent press release.

If cigarettes contained lower amounts of nicotine, researchers the University of California San Francisco, and the San Francisco General Hospital Medical Center determined that cigarette smokers would find it easier to quit.

Researchers engineered cigarettes used in this study so that they contained less nicotine than normal cigarettes. They foresaw that people might want to cheat, and made it difficult or impossible for participants to get higher amounts of nicotine from the cigarettes.

By doing so, scientists discovered that people could continue to smoke while reducing their nicotine dependence. Researchers stated that one of the keys was to provide cigarettes that gradually reduced the level of nicotine over a time frame of several weeks duration.

If these types of cigarettes were available, many more people could stop smoking, and those just beginning to smoke would not become addicted.

"This study supports the idea that if tobacco companies were required to reduce the levels of nicotine in cigarette tobacco, young people who start smoking could avoid becoming addicted, and long-time smokers could reduce or end their smoking. This could spare millions of people from the severe health effects of long-term smoking," said Neal Benowitz, MD, a UCSF professor of medicine, psychiatry and biopharmaceutical sciences, and chief, Division of Clinical Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics at SFGH.

In the past, people thought that low-yield cigarettes would be capable of delivering less nicotine. These had been tested by commercial machines and shown to deliver less nicotine. However, it's an easy system to defeat. If a smoker inhales deeper and more frequently, they can get just as much nicotine as if they were smoking regular cigarettes, thus defeating the lower nicotine level.

Researchers support proposals that may reach the U.S. Congress that would allow the FDA to regulate cigarettes, developing requirements that cigarettes be manufactured to be less harmful to smokers and non-smokers alike, including requiring lower limits of nicotine to reduce their addictiveness.

The National Institutes of Health, the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the California Tobacco Research Program, and Division of Research Resources funded this study.

Source:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-11/uoc--nas110907.php