subject: Studies Related to Effects of Tobacco [print this page] A scientific study and treatment program meant for tobacco smokers, alcoholics and drug addicts was conducted. In that, these people were required to keep themselves away from the use of tobacco and drugs. Their rate of relapse also was noted and studied. The aspects of cigarette smoking and substance abuse have got some sort of similarity. These points are the aspects of tolerance and the physiological dependence on these stuffs. In the earlier days itself, tolerance levels to tobacco and nicotine were noted and documented well. These aspects are shared by most of the drugs. When it comes to the issues of physiological dependence and related problems, it becomes more complex. People resort to using drugs; and in the earlier stages, physiological dependence is not possible to be detected. However, many of these drugs are associated with unpleasantness, discomfort and a heightened craving for the drug they have been using during the period when abstinence had to be maintained. Tobacco products and cigarettes are no exception to this as many people will go to any extent just to have a fag when they have the urge to smoke. There are a number of evidences that suggest that cigarette smoking forms a behaviour pattern and is also a kind of drug abuse. The deleterious factor in it is the critical element called nicotine. However, one of the agencies of the United States government stated that most of the evidence was circumstantial in nature and cannot be considered sufficient enough to officially declare tobacco cigarette smoking as another kind of drug abuse. The argument was that it had to be determined whether nicotine itself would meet the criteria in order to being defined as a drug that is abused by many a people. In the recent past, a lot of standardized procedures were developed to find out if new drugs can be abused. Two different studies were undertaken; one was called single dose study and the other self-administration study. Single dose study compares the effects of a single dose of the test drug to the outcome of single doses of some of the standard drugs that are abused. Alcohol, morphine, cocaine and pentobarbital constitute some of the highly abused drugs as they serve as standard drugs. In the other study called self-administration study, the drug is made available to both animals and human beings to verify if they would take it on a voluntary basis. After that, the single dose studies were used to compare effects of nicotine in cigarettes when ingested through smoking to effects of nicotine when taken intravenously. Smokers who volunteered were given cigars and cigarettes to smoke during test days and were administered nicotine injections on other days. These people were not told about the nicotine dose they were asked to consume; interestingly, even whether it contained the substance called nicotine at all. Several conclusions were made once the study was conducted. Nicotine did produce comparable effects when given intravenously and in the form of cigarettes. This has confirmed that nicotine is accountable for the physiological and psychological effects it has on humans.
