The Relative Impact of Acute Nicotine and Tobacco Administration on Craving, Withdrawal, and Cigarette Self-Administration in Dependent and Nondependent Smokers

Negative reinforcement mechanisms, wherein individuals smoke at regular intervals to ameliorate craving and withdrawal, are integral to persistent smoking. This is consistent with the behavior of dependent smokers butdoes not fully account for the behavior of intermittent smokers, who do not smoke enough to maintain steadynicotine levels. This study examined the independent and combined impacts of nicotine and tobaccoconsumption on cigarette craving, withdrawal, and subsequent smoking behavior in 18 nondependent light andintermittent smokers (LITS) and 23 daily, dependent smokers (DDS). Participants administered conventionalnicotine-containing cigarettes (NC; 18.9 mg nicotine; 1.41 mg deliverable), reduced nicotine content cigarettes(RNC; 0.4 mg nicotine, 0.05 mg deliverable), nicotine inhalers (NI; 10 mg nicotine, 4 mg deliverable), ornicotine-free inhalers (NFI) across 4 sessions following overnight abstinence. Participants rated craving andwithdrawal before and after product administration, then completed a cigarette self-administration task. Forcigarette self-administration, neither smoking status nor product affected latency to initiate smoking; however,LITS were more likely to abstain from smoking and administered fewer puffs than DDS. Across participants,pharmacologically active products (NC, RNC, NI) were associated with fewer cigarette puffs than the NFI.For subjective measures, only cigarettes (NC, RNC) reduced craving in both LITS and DDS. NC, RNC, andNI reduced withdrawal in DDS, while withdrawal remained at floor levels across time points among LITS.While subjective ratings and smoking behavior were largely comparable across LITS and DDS, differingpatterns of withdrawal symptoms suggest that dependent smoking is motivated by negative reinforcementwhile nondependent smoking is not