If you are a smoker eyeing e-cigarettes as a strategy to quit, news with a headline that reads “E-cigarettes could lead to using cocaine and cannabis, scientists say” could crush your hope before you even start. You and others like you will most certainly think twice about the wisdom of using e-cigarettes as a smoke cessation device.
Come to think about, that is exactly what e-cig antagonists want you to do. Will you do stay away from electronic cigarettes based on one study that suggests it can lead to cocaine addiction? Just before you step away from a potential solution that helped many, it makes sense to scrutinize the source and purpose of this news.
The Study that Begun it All!
That controversial headline appeared in more than one website. The source? It came from an article delivered by the Kandel couple – Professor Eric Kandel who shared the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology and his wife, Dr. Denise Kandel. The study by this couple from Columbia University has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Such awe-inspiring names are meant to reassure readers and critiques that everything has been done according to standard scientific protocols. But knowing that the tentacles, resources and clouts of the tobacco industry are far-fetching, it is always best to give studies like this a second look.
The Points of Interests
- The study entailed exposing the test animals (mice) to either nicotine or cocaine. There were also those animals that received either nicotine or cocaine before the other or before a combination of the two. The effects of the treatments were checked using behavioral and neurological changes as parameters.
- The subjects given nicotine before they were exposed to nicotine and cocaine afterwards manifested greater activity. They also spend more time in the spot where they received the drugs.
- Those that were treated with nicotine exhibited amplified dopamine production and gene expression changes believed to influence the enhanced effects of cocaine. The article argues that nicotine can modify the brain’s circuitry resulting to lower threshold for addiction to certain addictive substances like cannabis and cocaine.
- The researchers surmised that there are enough human evidences to show that higher proportions of people who were once smokers are most likely to become addicted to cocaine than those who never smoked. This is the premise used to argue that electronic -cigarettes may become the gateway to harder drugs such as cocaine.
- The article even pointed out that E-Cigarettes are “pure nicotine delivery devices” that could intensify drug addiction among young people.
Questionable Elements of the Argument
- The Interpretation of certain results: The research was done to find a biological basis for the “well defined progression” that smokers and drinkers exhibit towards use of marijuana and other harder drugs. The researchers tried to find the explanation in terms of neurological changes and changes to the gene expression.
Assuming the laboratory research was conducted accordingly, in the hands of these experts, the scientific and medical world should not cast any ounce of doubt on the results. What are being questioned at this point are not the results but the manner they interpret the results and how they use these to explain human tendencies to advance from nicotine and alcohol to harder drugs.
Obviously, the “human evidences” were not results generated from this research being beyond the “scope and delimitations” of their study. There was also a failure to explain the “tendency to progress to harder drugs” in terms of other variables that can affect or influence complex human behavior.
- Caged condition elicits abnormal behavior. The mice used in the study were confined and had little or no social interaction; it is not a normal living setup even for mice. Under the unhealthy condition, they are expected to exhibit a different behavior.
There were other classic experiments on drug abuse using mice as test animals that were allowed to live in a healthier or more normal setup. Even when exposed to morphine for 6 weeks, they did not use the morphine as much as those cultured in cages. In other words, the caged mice animals in their experiments were exposed to an unhealthy environment and experiences so their behavior can be largely questionable if indeed those can be classified as “normal.”
- The significance of using mice to explain human behavior. It is a common practice to use test animals in experiments in the place of humans. In some experiments, they work, but not in every experiment. Knowing the complexity of human behavior, the deductions made based on a single experiment is rather overstretching and an oversimplification.
The bigger concern is the fact that the mice were given cocaine after “primed” by nicotine. That those treated with nicotine showed vulnerability to harder drugs is interesting, but it must also be considered that can be other factors that are also likely to influence the behavior of the mice.
In the real human world, even if a person smokes and primed for cocaine, it doesn’t follow that he/she will take it. There are other substances (caffeine) or activities (thrilling/extreme sports) in the real world that can “prime” the brain for an enhanced cocaine experience, but people are not warned against those substances and activities. It is still interesting though to know that most cocaine users smoke too, but note that not every smoker is into or seeks out harder drugs.
- The Gateway Model or Hypothesis: The article claims that the use of electronic cigarettes may lead to harder drugs such as cannabis and cocaine. From the start, this was set up since the Kandel couple has this pet theory. This is why certain test animals were treated first with nicotine before being exposed to cocaine. They were eager to show that indeed previous exposure to nicotine makes the test subjects easier to develop addiction to cocaine.
The fact that the two researchers did not actually make a direct observation if e-cigarettes can indeed be a gateway to harder drugs means they are making a presumption. The conjecture would have hold more water if they have not singled out e-cigarettes when there are other smoke cessation devices that also contain nicotine (nicotine gums and nicotine patches) available for human use. All these will theoretically have the same “gateway effect” as an e-cig with nicotine.
In the real world, it is not really clear what can cause addiction; the Gateway Model makes it oversimplified. The model can always be countered by the “Common Liability Model” or the “Reverse Gateway” Model. The latter offers a more viable explanation stating that that several factors, not specific substances, make a person at greater risk for addiction. There are many studies that support Common Liability Model than the Gateway Hypothesis. All things considered, the Gateway Model is still far from proven.
- Relationship drawn between electronic cigarettes and escalation of drug addiction. The article warned the young ones from vaping because they said that E-Cigarettes are “pure nicotine delivery devices” that could “exponentially” increase drug use and addiction among young users.
This is such a strong recommendation based on this single experiment. According to Carl V. Phillips, a well-known advocate of tobacco harm reduction, there are no enough data upon which to base the assumption of “exponential increase.”
An Alternative Opinion
The research was able to look at the effects of nicotine and how it can prime the brain for an enhanced cocaine use. The study, however, did not uncover any evidence to show that an exposure to nicotine will necessarily lead to seeking cocaine. In fact, there are enough studies to show that drug addiction is as prevalent in many countries where nicotine (alcohol and marijuana too) use patterns are low. Further, the results were not enough to suggest that it can be a “gateway” for other hard drugs.
Eric and Denise Kandel should not have also suggested, even implicitly implied, that electronic cigarettes can lead to increased possibility of cocaine use among adolescent smokers for two reasons. One, there were no data to support it. And two, it was not mathematically supported and possible. Rather, they should have recommended pursuing a more extensive research generating more appropriate data to support (their) other hypotheses. To use these findings to make deductions and recommendations are inappropriate.