An ASU professor is challenging widely held conceptions about smoking, including challenging the view that nicotine is addictive.
Peter Killeen, emeritus professor of psychology in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, presented his research findings for the National Institute on Drug Abuse on the Tempe campus Wednesday afternoon.
The talk was called ...... Madness: There aint no such Thing as Addiction to Nicotine.
NIDA initially invited Killeen to look into ways to improve scientific research on drug abuse, specifically nicotine addiction.
I came up with a shocking discovery, Killeen said. Theres no such thing as nicotine addiction.
Its time to get our heads straight, Killeen said. What causes the tremendously addicting power of cigarettes is the drug cocktail of nicotine, he said, not nicotine itself.
Before he got into his findings, Killeen said he wanted to make clear that tobacco kills.
[Tobacco] is the number one preventable cause of death in developing nations, he said. Half of the people who are lifelong smokers will die of smoking-related illness.
And yet, he said, the mass addiction to cigarettes and the public knowledge of tobaccos deadliness creates a paradox.
There is something missing in the equation, Killeen said: A sufficient answer about what causes the powerful addiction.
For years, researchers have maintained that nicotine is the cause of tobacco addiction.
But Killeen said new evidence suggests otherwise.
A large portion of the research on tobacco studies is done on nicotine. But the research has not been very reinforcing, Killeen said. Nicotine in itself is not very rewarding. You can go to any drugstore and buy a packet of Nicorette chewing gum.
But people dont overdose on Nicorette chewing gum, he said.
Studies have shown that none of the nicotine replacement therapies chewing gum, inhalers, patches none of those are addictive, he said. Nicotine is not addictive. So whats going on?
The cause of addiction is the release of monoamine oxidase inhibitors, or MAOIs, along with nicotine, Killeen said.
While nicotine affects the release of dopamine, or the reward hormone that affects emotions and movement, MAOIs help regulate dopamine levels, Killeen said.
When you put together something that directly releases dopamine and another thing that helps the brain clean up excess dopamine, youve got a one-two punch, he said. It is my hypothesis that its a combination of nicotine with some of these other chemicals that causes the powerful addiction.
Killeen said publicizing his research is important in moving forward with the study.
Not everybody knows that nicotine is not addictive, he said. This negatively affects both the research and public opinion.
Many people are hesitant to accept the researchs implications, but Killeen said his hypothesis is hard to deny.
I presented this position to 20 of the worlds experts, he said. And though some were shocked and insulted, no one could argue that my case was untrue.
ASU Director of Campus Health Services Allan Markus said it would take a thorough clinical trial to further prove Killeens hypothesis.
