Tobacco smoking: a comparison between alcohol and drug abuse inpatients

Abstract

This study compared the tobacco smoking of alcohol and drug abuse patients. The subjects were male inpatients (67 alcohol, 60 drug, and 13 mixed alcohol and drug abusers) of a Veterans Administration substance abuse program who had completed the Tolerance Questionnaire (Fagerstrom, 1978) and the Michigan Alcohol Screening Test (Skinner, 1979) as part of routine intake assessment procedures. As expected, an extremely high percentage (89.6%) of the alcohol abusers reported smoking cigarettes. Interestingly, an equally high prevalence of smoking was noted among the drug (90.0%) and mixed substance abuse (100%) groups. Comparisons conducted between abuse groups indicated that the alcohol abusers smoked significantly more cigarettes per day and had significantly higher Tolerance Questionnaire scores than the drug abusers, but did not differ from the mixed abuse group on any smoking variable. Additional comparisons of the total substance abuse population with a national sample of similarly aged males indicated that only the alcohol group smoked more cigarettes per day, but that all substance abuse groups smoked higher nicotine delivery cigarettes than the national sample.