ALCOHOL AND THE REWARD VALUE OF CIGARETTE-SMOKING

People who drink alcohol are more likely to smoke, and experiments hav e shown that alcohol can increase cigarette smoking. However, it is no t clear why alcohol consumption should increase smoking. To address th is issue the current experiment looked at the effects of alcohol on a range of behavioural and subjective measures intended to assess the re ward value of smoking. These included a preference test carried out af ter subjects had smoked cigarettes of one colour after consuming alcoh ol, and cigarettes of another colour after consuming non-alcoholic dri nks. In the preference test, subjects were offered the choice of smoki ng the alcoholic or non-alcoholic drink-paired cigarette. It was hypot hesised that if alcohol increased the reward value of smoking, subject s would choose to smoke the alcohol-paired cigarette. Consumption of a lcohol increased the length of time people spent smoking, increased th e number of puffs taken on each cigarette, and increased the amount of tobacco burnt. There were also strong subjective effects, with subjec ts looking forward more to smoking after alcohol and reporting greater smoking satisfaction after alcohol. However, subjects did not show a preference for the cigarettes they had smoked after alcohol.