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Smoke Free Collection Stop Smoking Resource Dopamine <Picture> Prime Suspect They don't yet know the precise mechanism by which it works, but scientists are increasingly convinced that dopamine plays a key role in a wide range of addictions, including those to heroine, nicotine, alcohol and marijuana. <Picture> <Picture> The moment you take that puff, trillions of potent molecules surge through your blood stream and into your brain. Once there, they set off a cascade of chemical and electrical events, a kind of neurological chain reaction that ricochets around the skull and rearranges the interior reality of the mind. Given the complexity of these events, and the inner workings of the mind in general, it's not suprising that scientists have struggled mightily to make sense of the mechanisms of addiction. Why do certain substances have the power to make us feel so good (at least at first)? Why do some people fall so easily into the thrall of alcohol, cocaine, nicotine and other addictive substances, while others can, literally, take them or leave them? The answer, many scientists are convinced, may be simpler than anyone has dared imagined. What ties all of these mood altering drugs together, they say, is a remarkable ability to elevate levels of a common substance in the brain called dopamine. In fact, so overwhelming has evidence of the link between dopamine and drugs of abuse become that the distinction (pushed primarily by the tobacco industry and it's supporters) between substances that are addictive and those that are merely habit-forming has very nearly been swept away. The Liggett Group, smallest of the U.S.'s Big Five cigarette makers, broke ranks in March and conceded not only that tobacco is addictive but also that the company has known it all along. While RJR Nabisco and others continue to battle in courts, insisting that smokers are not hooked, just exercising free choice, their denials ring increasingly hollow in the face of growing weight of evidence. Over the past year, several scientific groups have made the case that in dopamine-rich areas of the brain, nicotine behaves remarkably like cocaine. And a federal judge has ruled for the first time that the Food and Drug Administration has the right to regulate tobacco as a drug and cigarettes as a drug delivery device. The Dopamine Cycle <Picture> <Picture> 1996-98 Copyright - TMC Enterprise - All Rights Reserved