37 



the comparisons, the similarities are astounding, so they are very 

 similar. Self-administration techniques predict what humans will 

 do. 



Mr. Greenwood. There has been probably too much made about 

 the food comparisons to cigarettes. But there are people with eating 

 disorders who seem by a lot of measures to be as addicted to foods 

 as people are to substances. Are we talking about the same range 

 of human behavior? 



Mr. DeNoble. Not really, because things like bulimia or people 

 who have food addictions, may, in fact, be driven by biochemical 

 imbalances in the brain. That may, in fact, be a psychiatric dis- 

 order. You don't have to have a psychiatric disorder to be addicted. 

 The addiction or the self-administration is cued by the drug in the 

 brain, so they are really very different things. 



Mr. Greenwood. OK. Finally, your testimony in this hearing has 

 been fascinating in terms of science. It is interesting to learn about 

 your experiments, the experiments that have followed, and the var- 

 ious qualities that are found in nicotine. But we are here to make 

 public policy. So I guess I have to ask you this: What are you here 

 to tell us in terms of public policy? This is very interesting science, 

 but what should we take from your testimony? What do you want 

 us to do in response to your testimony, in terms of crafting public 

 policy? 



Mr. DeNoble. Well, I'm not here to make public policy. I'm here 

 to tell you of the science that was done between 1980 and 1984. 

 I'm here to position that science as to its relevancy with reference 

 to other science that's being done from 1984 on. I'm not going to 

 be so bold as to tell you what to do with public policy. I can't do 

 that. 



Mr. Greenwood. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 



Mr. Waxman. Thank you, Mr. Greenwood. Mr. Wyden? 



Mr. Wyden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me, if I could. Dr. 

 DeNoble, go back to this point with Mr. Bliley, because Mr. Bliley 

 was talking specifically about nicotine effects and showing with- 

 drawal in rats. Now, you testified that subsequent studies show 

 that nicotine does cause withdrawal in rats. What was it about 

 these studies that made it possible to identify withdrawal symp- 

 toms? 



Mr. DeNoble. Our study, as I mentioned, relied upon a very 

 strongly motivated behavior. If the rat didn't press the lever, it 

 didn't eat. And that is a very strong drive. These later studies used 

 very subtle measures. Whereas a rat doesn't necessarily have to 

 press the lever to eat, but maybe to deliver itself a glucose sweet- 

 ened solution. So it's a reward, if you will, a candy. 



Under those conditions where the rat is not so strongly moti- 

 vated, people have shown that nicotine will disrupt those meas- 

 ures. So the difference was that ours was a very highly motivated 

 animal. If you don't press, you don't eat. The other one is, if you 

 don't press, well, maybe you don't get your glucose. 



Mr. Wyden. Let me turn now to an area that Chairman Wax- 

 man, I think, has really focused on very correctly, and that is this 

 matter of secrecy in the tobacco industry. I just look at the events 

 of what went on in your situation, and many others, as just sort 

 of like a spy novel, with all this cloak-and-dagger kind of activity. 



