The Chemistry of Smoking

"Don't ask me why I smoke," says the grim-looking man in the Winston cigarette ad. Columbia Psychologist Stanley Schachter, 54, agrees that it is better not to ask. The Winston man--or any other heavy smoker--would probably say he smokes for pleasure, or because it calms his nerves, gives him something to do with his hands or solves his Freudian oral problems. "Almost any smoker can convince you and himself that he smokes for psychological reasons or that smoking does something positive for him--it's all very unlikely," says Schachter, a virtual chain smoker himself. "We smoke because we're physically addicted to nicotine. Period."

Schachter reached his conclusion after conducting a series of experiments over the past four years. Like other researchers, Schachter and his team (Brett Silverstein, Lynn Kozlowski and Deborah Perlick) found that heavy smokers, given only low-nicotine cigarettes to smoke, tried to compensate; to inhale their normal quota of nicotine, they smoked more cigarettes and puffed more frequently. Even so, some were not able to make up the difference and showed withdrawal symptoms: increased eating, irritability and poorer concentration.

The researchers then went further by testing volunteers to see whether smoking eases stress. On the assumption that the more anxious a person is, the less pain he will tolerate, groups of smokers and nonsmokers were asked to endure as much electric shock as they could bear. Smokers proved to be sissies when deprived of cigarettes or given only low-nicotine brands. Those supplied with armloads of high-nicotine brands to smoke accepted a higher number of shocks--but no more than the control group of nonsmokers. Schachter's conclusion: "Smoking doesn't reduce anxiety or calm the nerves. Not smoking increases anxiety by throwing the smoker into withdrawal."

Mindless Machine. Then why do most smokers smoke so heavily when under stress? Schachter's answer: because stress depletes body nicotine, and the smoker has to puff more to keep at his usual nicotine level. The key is the acidity of urine. One result of anxiety and stress is a high acid content in the urine. Highly acidic urine flushes away much more body nicotine than normal urine does. Schachter discovered that smokers who were administered mild acids (vitamin C and Acidulin) in heavy doses smoked more over a period of days than comparable smokers who took bicarbonates to make their urine more alkaline. His tests also show that bicarbonates reduce smoking under stress. One experiment indicates that partygoing increases the acidity of the urine for smokers and nonsmokers alike. "It follows," Schachter says puckishly, "that the concerned smoker should take the Alka-Seltzer before--not after--the party."

Schachter says his findings, which will be published in next month's

Journal of Experimental Psychology. show that "the smoker's mind is in the bladder. You just don't need the mind to explain smoking. When plasma nicotine is below the smoker's usual level, he smokes: when it is at his level, he doesn't." Schachter agrees with other researchers who have recommended development of a new high-nicotine, low-tar, low-gas cigarette. Current low-tar, low-nicotine brands, he says, may be lethal. "You wind up spending more, smoking more and getting far more dangerous combustion products for the same nicotine payoff as stronger cigarettes. Worse, it's probably a good guess that the low-tar brands are hooking millions of teenagers. When I was young, that first Camel or Lucky made so many kids sick that they stayed off cigarettes for good. Now so many brands are so weak that the kids don't get sick enough to stop right away. They just get hooked."

Schachter's own "biochemical mechanism" currently requires 2 1/2 packs a day, and he sees little hope of cutting down. "It's possible to control and restrict smoking, but the price appears to be a chronic state of withdrawal." He admits that like millions of other smokers, "I'm not willing to face that withdrawal."

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