Aims. To determine the topography of cigarette smoking and the subjective a
nd physiological effects of abstinence and nicotine in adolescents who smok
e on a daily versus a non-daily basis. Design. Repeated measures experiment
, non-blinded, involving a single test session. Setting. Human psychopharma
cology laboratory. Participants. Twenty-one daily and 21 non-daily adolesce
nt cigarette smokers (21 females; 21 males; age 13-18 years) with life-time
use greater than 10 cigarettes, responding to radio and print advertisemen
ts. Intervention. Overnight abstinence from cigarettes followed by smoking
of a single cigarette furnished by the participant at test. Measurements. T
he Fagerstrom Test for Nicotine Dependence, saliva nicotine and cotinine, e
xpired air carbon monoxide (CO), heart rate (HR), self-report scales and sm
oking topography. Most measurements were performed before and after smoking
. Findings. Saliva nicotine, CO and HR increased, and self-reported intenti
on and desire to smoke decreased, after smoking (p<0.001). Fagerstrom score
s indicated greater dependence and desire to smoke in daily than in non-dai
ly smokers. HR increased substantially over pre-smoking levels in both grou
ps. Puff topography did not differ between the groups, although collectivel
y these participants appeared to take smaller and more puffs than adult smo
kers tested under similar conditions. Conclusion. This study provides initi
al evidence that adolescent cigarette smokers self-administer physiological
ly active doses of nicotine very early in their smoking careers. Nicotine d
ependence in adolescents appears to be a function of the current frequency
of cigarette use, and subjective-behavioral consequences of abstinence and
smoking are evident even in non-daily smokers.