Acute subjective and physiological responses to smoking in adolescents

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.