Abuse Liability of Reduced Nicotine Content Cigarettes Within a Complex Tobacco Marketplace

Overview

Tobacco regulatory policies can have unanticipated consequences; therefore, methods that would permit prospective estimates of the effects of potential tobacco regulations are necessary for the development of tobacco regulatory science. The goal of this project is to experimentally assess how smokers purchase and consume reduced-nicotine cigarettes. In experiment 1, we will investigate how purchasing/consuming reduced-nicotine cigarettes is related to nicotine content and absorption. In experiment 2, we will investigate how purchasing/consuming changes when other nicotine products are available in an experimental marketplace setting. The proposed projects can directly inform tobacco regulation by providing estimates of the real-world effects of novel policies.

The specific objective in Experiment 1 is to examine the effect of nicotine content (0.4 mg/g, 1.4 mg/g, 2.5 mg/g, 5.6 mg/g, and 17.4 mg/g of tobacco) and blood nicotine absorption on laboratory behavioral economic measures of demand intensity and elasticity. Under double-blind conditions, we will examine the relationship between plasma nicotine and cigarette demand as a function of the dose of the nicotine in the cigarettes. Regular cigarette smokers will consume, on separate sessions, controlled puffs of a cigarette containing a blinded dose of nicotine then complete a cigarette purchase task, our measure of value, while plasma nicotine is measured. We hypothesize that cigarette demand will be associated with dose and level of circulating nicotine, but in a nonlinear fashion such that consumption of very low dose cigarettes will not be predicted by nicotine dose or intake alone. To inform how various products may interact, we have developed and tested a novel method called the Experimental Tobacco Marketplace. The Experimental Tobacco Marketplace is a systematic extension of similar marketplace methods used with other consumer products (e.g., food marketplaces used in obesity and other nutrition-related research; Epstein, Dearing, Roba, \& Finkelstein, 2010). In experimental marketplaces, multiple products are available and the experimenter controls the prices for each. These marketplaces can be either physical or virtual stores (similar to online retailers) and permit the examination of demand elasticity and intensity and degree of substitution or complementarity in consumer behavior under conditions that approximate naturalistic settings. Experiment 2 will extend findings from the first experiment examining the effects of different concentrations of nicotine in cigarettes (0.4mg/g, 1.4mg/g, 2.5mg/g, 5.6mg/g, 17.4mg/g) and blood nictotine absorption on laboratory behavioral economic demand measures. Employing this innovative Experimental Tobacco Marketplace, we propose to examine reduced-nicotine cigarettes under the following conditions: 1) control conditions where lower dose nicotine cigarettes are the only available product in the Experimental Tobacco Marketplace and where the tobacco marketplace is similar to the current real-world marketplace (i.e., no lower dose nicotine cigarettes, but a variety of other tobacco products); 2) lower dose nicotine cigarettes are available with a number of other nicotine products excluding conventional cigarettes; and 3) lower dose nicotine cigarettes are available with a number of other nicotine products including conventional cigarettes.