Cigarette Smoking Leads to Coke?

Nicotine may alter the brain’s response to cocaine, supporting the idea that the legal drug may serve as a "gateway" to the use of illegal substances.

Written byJef Akst

| 2 min read

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Cigarette smokers may be more inclined to crave cocaine, according to a study published this week (November 2) in Science Translational Medicine, which found that the nicotine can result in gene regulation changes that boost the response of mouse brains to the drug.

Scientists have long recognized the trend that drug users tend to start with cigarettes and alcohol before moving on to harder drugs, thus tagging the legal substances with the label "gateway drugs." But there was no mechanism to explain the trend, and the idea has been a continued source of controversy.

In the current study, epidemiologist Denise Kandel at Columbia University, New York, who originally reported on the "gateway drug" idea in 1975, and her husband Eric, a Nobel Prize-winning neurobiologist who ...

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Meet the Author

Jef Akst
Jef (an unusual nickname for Jennifer) got her master’s degree from Indiana University in April 2009 studying the mating behavior of seahorses. After four years of diving off the Gulf Coast of Tampa and performing behavioral experiments at the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, she left research to pursue a career in science writing. As The Scientist's managing editor, Jef edited features and oversaw the production of the TS Digest and quarterly print magazine. In 2022, her feature on uterus transplantation earned first place in the trade category of the Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism. She is a member of the National Association of Science Writers.
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