The Health Consequences of Smoking: Nicotine Addiction: A Report of the Surgeon General

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Nicotine addiction
• Journal Article:
  DHHS publication ; no. (CDC)
• Corporate Authors:
  United States. Office on Smoking and Health. ; United States. Public Health Service. Office of the Surgeon General.
• Description:
  This 20th Report of the Surgeon General on the health consequences of tobacco use provides an additional important piece of evidence concerning the serious health risks associated with using tobacco.
  
  The subject of this Report, nicotine addiction, was first mentioned in the 1964 Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General, which referred to tobacco use as “habituating.” In the landmark 1979 Report of the Surgeon General, by which time considerably more research had been conducted, smoking was called “the prototypical substance-abuse dependency.” Scientists in the field of drug addiction now agree that nicotine, the principal pharmacologic agent that is common to all forms of tobacco, is a powerfully addicting drug.
  
  Recognizing tobacco use as an addiction is critical both for treating the tobacco user and for understanding why people continue to use tobacco despite the known health risks. Nicotine is a psychoactive drug with actions that reinforce the use of tobacco. Efforts to reduce tobacco use in our society must address all the major influences that encourage continued use, including social, psychological, and pharmacologic factors.
  
  After carefully examining the available evidence, this Report concludes that: Cigarettes and other forms of tobacco are addicting; Nicotine is the drug in tobacco that causes addiction; The pharmacologic and behavioral processes that determine tobacco addiction are similar to those that determine addiction to drugs such as heroin and cocaine.
  
  CDC-INFO Pub ID 993533
  
  
• Content Notes:
  993533
• Subjects:
  Nicotine/adverse Effects Smoking/adverse Effects Substance-Related Disorders Tobacco Use Disorder
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Report
• Pages in Document:
  xxi, 618 numbered pages
• Collection(s):
  Stephen B. Thacker CDC Library
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:1d4cc6de965fa975e0803e15f1c446100a1c6355d74d6360f75ce5063ac478143fc975a15159885f9c3b10689927030a2c49c672792ad98135efd4fa0cb621c3
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/22014/cdc_22014_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 16.63 MB ]