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Pharmacology Biochemistry & Behavior, Vol. 20, pp. 583-590, 1984. O Ankho International Inc. Printed in the U.S.A. 0091-3057/84 $3.00 + .00 Effects of Single Doses of Alcohol and Caffeine on Cigarette Smoke Puffing Behavior RICO NIL,t ROBERTO BUZZI AND KARL BATTIG Behavioral Science Institute, Behavioral Biology Laboratory, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH-Zentrum, CH-8092 Ziirich, Switzerland Received 29 March 1983 NIL, R., R. BUZZI AND K. BATTIG. Effects of single doses of alcohol and caffeine on cigarette smoke puffing behavior. PHARMACOL BIOCHEM BEHAV 20(4) 583-590, 1984.-Puffing behavior (number of puffs, puff duration, puff volume, peak pressure, peak flow, peak latency, and puff interval) and pre- to postsmoking A tidal CO difference were measured in female subjects in order to assess separate and combined effects of ethanol and caffeine. The subjects smoked two cigarettes of their habitual brand in a preliminary familiarizing session and in each of the subsequent four test sessions. The treatments administered after smoking the first cigarette in the test sessions were: alcohol placebo and caffeine placebo; alcohol placebo and caffeine: alcohol and caffeine placebo; alcohol and caffeine. Test-retest reliability across the first cigarette of each session (which was not smoked under the influence of the treatments) was remarkably high for all the puffing parameters. Ethanol in the dose of 0.7 g/kg intensif ed cigarette smoking of the second cigarette by increasing v tidal CO, average puff volume. and total puff volume per cigarette, whereas 0.5 g/kg ethanol and 5 mg/kg caffeine given alone or combined with ethanol failed to influence puffing behavior consistently. Alcohol Caffeine Cigarette smoking POSITIVE correlations between average daily cigarette consumption and consumption of alcoholic and caffeine- containing beverages have been found in several investiga- tions [3, 4, 28, 29]. Such correlations raise the question whether this might be a consequence of life style or of phar- macological interactions between alcohol, caffeine, and nicotine or other smoke constituents. Under laboratory, conditions Griffiths et al. [11] found that in alcoholics ethanol consumption was followed by an enhanced rate of cigarette smoking. Similar effects of ethanol consumption on cigarette smoking were also shown for social drinking [21]. In a recent review article Adesso [1] proposed that these results, together with the numerous reports on correlations between consumption of alcohol and nicotine, suggest a dose related pharmacological interaction between the two sub- stances. Experiments on the effect of caffeine on smoking have yielded more controversial "results. Kozlowski [17] found that nicotine mouth intake diiring smoking was higher in the caffeine placebo condition than in any of three different caf- feine dosage conditions, especially in light coffee consumers. Marshall et al. [19,20] observed that a greater number of cigarettes was smoked by subjects receiving coffee (with or without caffeine) than by subjects in no-drink or water con- trol groups. . Several studies suggest that smokers adjust their smoking behavior so as to regulate nicotine intake [18,27]. Since in- dividual puffing behavior and inhalation during the smoking of single cigarettes seem to be the main contributors in this regulation [2,5], the present experiment was designed to in- vestigate the pharmacological effects of alcohol and caffeine on parameters of smoke puffing behavior and respiratory smoke inhalation. Each subject was monitored for puffing and inhalation behavior while smoking two personal-brand cigarettes. Such cigarettes were preferred to any standard- ized cigarettes, because it has been shown that nicotine and CO uptake are nearly independent of the respective smoke yields of the cigarettes [5,27] and also because personal- brand cigarettes were expected to interfere less with "nat- ural" smoking. Data obtained with the first cigarette, smoked before the experimental treatments with caffeine, alcohol, their placebos and combinations, were used to assess test-retest reliability of puffing and inhalation behav- ior, whereas the data obtained with the second cigarette were used to assess for the treatment effects. METHOD Subjects Twenty female paid volunteers (between the ages of 18 and 50) served as subjects. They were all regular smokers and reported themselves to be in good health. On the test 'Requests for reprints should be addressed to Professor K. Battig, Institut fur Verhaltenswissenschaft, ETH-Zentrum, CH-8092 Zurich, Switzerland. 583