Tobacco dependence, restraint and time to the first cigarette of the day

The number of minutes it takes for a smoker to have the first cigarette of the day is discussed as a useful, subject-classifying variable. Other researchers have proposed that almost all smokers are dependent (on nicotine) and that those who behave as if they are not (e.g., by not smoking immediately in the morning) are actively restraining their cigarette intake. Study 1 shows that many smokers who delay their smoking are not so much restraining themselves from a desired cigarette as they are avoiding an especially noxious one; individual differences in urinary pH do not account for the sensitivity of some smokers to tobacco in the morning. Study 2 indicates that early smokers are more dependent on tobacco than are the later smokers, in that early smokers in a smoking-treatment program are less likely to be able to quit smoking.