Light and intermittent smokers: Background and perspective

Abstract

This special issue of Nicotine & Tobacco Research represents a milestone in the thinking in our field about variations in smoking patterns. Over the past several decades, a stereotype has developed—the image of a smoker as consuming one cigarette after another, expressing a constant hunger for nicotine—a need to frequently redose with nicotine to maintain a steady concentration of nicotine in the bloodstream. Like many stereotypes, this one has a large element of truth. Around 1980, the average smoker's daily cigarette consumption was 32 cigarettes/day (Repace & Lowrey, 1980). In other words, in a 16-hr waking day, the typical smoker smoked every 30 min, and smokers who lit up every 15 min (60 cigarettes/day) were not unusual. Smoking, even hourly, results in steady or escalating nicotine levels over the waking day (Benowitz, 1991). This pattern of steady and frequent dosing was striking, indeed, and helped establish tobacco smoking as nicotine dependence.