By Neil Swan, NIDA Notes Staff Writer

A number of studies have shown that women find it more difficult than do men to quit smoking cigarettes. This is especially evident in studies of nicotine replacement therapies that use nicotine patches or nicotine gum. Now two separate NIDA-funded studies examining gender differences related to smoking suggest that something in addition to nicotine is involved in women's dependence on smoking tobacco.

"It appears that, compared with men, women may smoke less for nicotine and more for nonnicotine effects of smoking," says Dr. Kenneth A. Perkins, a psychologist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. These nonnicotine influences might include nondrug-induced sensory effects like seeing and smelling tobacco smoke, conditioned responses to these smoke stimuli, or social pleasures involved in smoking rituals, he suggests.

For example, one observer has noted that smokers may exhibit gender differences in the way they gather outside buildings to smoke, Dr. Perkins says. Male smokers tend to be loners; females tend to gather in social groups. These behaviors may indicate critical gender-based differences relating to tobacco smoking that may have little to do with nicotine, observers theorize. Dr. Perkins calls these nonnicotine influences "external stimuli."

If further research supports this view of gender differences in external and behavioral influences related to smoking, says Dr. Perkins, it will be important to revise smoking cessation treatments for women trying to quit. This would mean tailoring therapy for women to increase behavioral support and rely less on nicotine replacement.