What they found was remarkable: a 3-year “sleeper effect” for tobacco addiction. That is, a single cigarette can create “a personal propensity or vulnerability to smoke that may not become manifest without additional triggers.”
What was the evidence that lead to this claim? The researchers discovered that an adolescent who had smoked just one cigarette at age 11 was twice as likely to be a regular smoker at age 14 than those who had not tried a cigarette at age 11. This was true even for the kids who did not smoke again in the intervening years.
[A]n adolescent who had smoked just one cigarette at age 11 was twice as likely to be a regular smoker at age 14 than those who had not tried a cigarette at age 11. This was true even for the kids who did not smoke again in the intervening years.
[A]n adolescent who had smoked just one cigarette at age 11 was twice as likely to be a regular smoker at age 14 than those who had not tried a cigarette at age 11. This was true even for the kids who did not smoke again in the intervening years.
How can the 14 year old be considered a ‘regular smoker’ when he hasn’t smoked in three years?
I assume those were years in which he was 11, 12, and 13?
An implied floor(age) hadn’t occured to me. I suppose that means that on average the 14 year olds in question would have 0.5 years in which to become a regular smoker. An… interesting… thing to measure. The ones that would be most likely to be smokers would then be those that are closer to 15 than 14.
I meant, first, it’s about tobacco and not nicotine, and second, it’s a longitudinal correlational study, not causal as your link immediately jumps to (it “creates” a vulnerability).
The sleeper effect held true even if you controlled for gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, parents’ smoking, and conduct problems
is not nearly enough to claim you have screened off all possible variables and now you are entitled to infer causation. (And the claim is pretty dubious in the first claim: one cigarette does all that? Even stuff like heroin doesn’t guarantee addiction after the first injection!)
Figure 11 shows that 16% (35) of year 7 “one time triers” became current smokers for the first time in year 8 (age 12–13) compared with only 3% (45) of year 7 never smokers. Similarly 18% (28) of year 7 “one time triers” became current smokers for the first time in year 9 (age 13–14) compared with only 7% (111) of year 7 never smokers, and 20% (22) became current smokers in year 10 (age 14–15) compared with 10% (146) of year 7 never smokers. In these respondents, no further smoking, beyond the initial cigarette, had been reported in the intervening years and therefore current cigarette use was not reported until several years after the first cigarette. It was only in year 11 (age 15–16) that new current cigarette use finally equalised across the year 7 “one time triers”, 12% (10) and never smokers, 11% (131).
If there is a causal effect, I like the social suggestion:
Alternatively, from a social cognition perspective,23 an early experience with cigarettes might break down barriers that would otherwise prevent or delay smoking, such as fear of adverse reactions to smoking or insecurities regarding how to smoke. If these potential concerns have been overcome in the past, the likelihood of accepting a cigarette at a later time point may be raised in relation to those who have not had this experience, resulting in the expression of a behaviour which has been dormant. Finally, from a constitutional vulnerability viewpoint, past research suggests that individuals with a particular social and psychological profile are more likely to become smokers.21,22,24 The personal traits that lead to early experience of smoking could contribute an underlying increase in risk of smoking that is not triggered until environmental conditions are right.
Perfectly consistent with a 2:1 odds-ratio, fits with the elimination of the effect by mid-teens, and doesn’t attribute implausible powers to tobacco.
Ha, I got the idea for nootropics from your dual n-back article in the first place.
I’ll certainly try some nicotine gums, but would that be strong? I’d like something strong, like Adderall, but I know that Adderall is illegal without prescription (damn stupid laws), and I will likely never be in the state of having an ADHD diagnosis.
The Adderall I used was apparently a lower dose than some people use and I haven’t tried nicotine double-blinded yet (soon though!); with those caveats, my impression has been that 2mg of nicotine is somewhat weaker than the Adderall but without the more negative side-effects of ‘tweaking’.
A good datapoint, thanks. I’ll have to read it thoroughly later.
(I’m not sure how important it is—if there is no transition to tobacco use, which was my principal concern from the start, is it really a problem? I know for a fact that I am addicted to caffeine and anyone who starts using caffeine will quite likely become addicted, but does that really bother anyone?)
Are you addicted, or just dependent? (Many drugs cause dependence without being addictive—anything that causes withdrawal symptoms causes dependence, and caffeine does cause withdrawal symptoms.)
There are many different definitions of addiction, so if you’re really curious, you might want to specify which particular set of definitions for technical terms like ‘dependence’ or ‘addiction’ you’re using.
What do you make of nicotine?
Another thing I found:
[A]n adolescent who had smoked just one cigarette at age 11 was twice as likely to be a regular smoker at age 14 than those who had not tried a cigarette at age 11. This was true even for the kids who did not smoke again in the intervening years.
Source.
(Edited to include a bigger quote.)
How can the 14 year old be considered a ‘regular smoker’ when he hasn’t smoked in three years?
I assume those were years in which he was 11, 12, and 13?
An implied floor(age) hadn’t occured to me. I suppose that means that on average the 14 year olds in question would have 0.5 years in which to become a regular smoker. An… interesting… thing to measure. The ones that would be most likely to be smokers would then be those that are closer to 15 than 14.
That’s not a very useful datapoint.
Sorry, my post kind of got messed up; the link is visible now.
I meant, first, it’s about tobacco and not nicotine, and second, it’s a longitudinal correlational study, not causal as your link immediately jumps to (it “creates” a vulnerability).
is not nearly enough to claim you have screened off all possible variables and now you are entitled to infer causation. (And the claim is pretty dubious in the first claim: one cigarette does all that? Even stuff like heroin doesn’t guarantee addiction after the first injection!)
Going to the full text:
If there is a causal effect, I like the social suggestion:
Perfectly consistent with a 2:1 odds-ratio, fits with the elimination of the effect by mid-teens, and doesn’t attribute implausible powers to tobacco.
One cigarette causes does cause permanent, observable-on-autopsy changes in rat brains...
Such as?
::did Googling::
::retracts post::
Ha, I got the idea for nootropics from your dual n-back article in the first place.
I’ll certainly try some nicotine gums, but would that be strong? I’d like something strong, like Adderall, but I know that Adderall is illegal without prescription (damn stupid laws), and I will likely never be in the state of having an ADHD diagnosis.
The Adderall I used was apparently a lower dose than some people use and I haven’t tried nicotine double-blinded yet (soon though!); with those caveats, my impression has been that 2mg of nicotine is somewhat weaker than the Adderall but without the more negative side-effects of ‘tweaking’.
I suppose the risk of addiction is lower if it’s taken in a non-inhaled form, but it’s far from zero.
A good datapoint, thanks. I’ll have to read it thoroughly later.
(I’m not sure how important it is—if there is no transition to tobacco use, which was my principal concern from the start, is it really a problem? I know for a fact that I am addicted to caffeine and anyone who starts using caffeine will quite likely become addicted, but does that really bother anyone?)
Are you addicted, or just dependent? (Many drugs cause dependence without being addictive—anything that causes withdrawal symptoms causes dependence, and caffeine does cause withdrawal symptoms.)
There are many different definitions of addiction, so if you’re really curious, you might want to specify which particular set of definitions for technical terms like ‘dependence’ or ‘addiction’ you’re using.