Smoking: The Artificial Passion

This study will be of enormous interest to the legions of smokers who have failed to give up cigarettes permanently, the estimated 75% of quitters who become re-addicted within a year. Krogh, staff member of the University of California Academic Center, here reviews the scientific literature to explain what motivates people to smoke--and, by extension, why stopping is extremely difficult. The book analyzes a complex of addiction and attachment factors:ok? personality, culture, genetics, neurobiology, pharmacology. Nicotine, we're told, does things for smokers; it stimulates the brain, helps concentration, is an aid in weight control, moderates moods (smokers, unlike other addicts, smoke to get ``medium''). But smoking also does things to smokers; it is controlling and it can be lethal. In offering advice on how to quit, Krogh, not surprisingly, can do little more than give encouragement. And his endorsement of nicotine gum as a crutch is questionable--its use is censured by the American Cancer Society's quit-smoking program, for one. (June)