By Rob Gray, Ph.D.

“For Experienced Smokers Only”

If you read many cigar reviews you will frequently encounter comments such as “this mild cigar would be perfect for a novice smoker” or “this full-bodied cigar is for experienced smokers only!” Why does the ability to handle stronger cigars depend on smoking experience? As most readers would probably guess, the answer lies in the changes that in occur in your body in response to repeated exposure to nicotine --- called nicotine tolerance.

Nicotine Tolerance

Tolerance occurs when the same dose of nicotine produces decreased psychological and physiological effects with repeated use. In other words, a greater dosage of nicotine will be needed to produce the same effects you experienced when you first started cigar smoking. In order to understand how and why tolerance occurs, we first need to consider the basic behavioral effects of nicotine.

Nicotine is a psychoactive drug that has incredibly complex effects that depend on a multitude of factors. Its effects can be both adverse and pleasurable. So on one hand it may produce nausea, while on the other it may produce a feeling of calmness.

Nicotine can produce both acute and chronic effects. An example of an acute change would be an increase in blood pressure lasting roughly 1 hour, while chronic effects include permanent changes in brain structure. Nicotine can also act both as a stimulant, enhancing alertness, and as a relaxant.

The specific effects that are caused by nicotine, and the magnitude of those effects, will depend on a host of factors including: the level of the nicotine in the particular cigar, your smoking experience, your expectations about the cigar, the time of day, your blood glucose level (i.e., what you consume before and during smoking), your mood, and the surrounding environment. Since the focus of this article is nicotine tolerance we will consider only the first two of these factors: nicotine dose and experience with nicotine. But keep in the mind that the other factors are always in play and can explain why the perceived strength of a particular cigar brand can vary from “stick to stick” even in an experienced smoker.

Factors that Determine Nicotine Dose

The total quantity of nicotine in any given cigar can vary between that found in a single cigarette (roughly 1 mg) to many times this amount (up to 400 mg). The amount primarily depends on three factors. The first factor is the vitola. Typically, a larger vitola like a Churchill will administer a larger dose of nicotine than a Petit Corona of the same brand and line of cigar.*

The second factor is the duration of fermentation/aging. The nicotine level in cigar tobacco can decrease by 35-85% during fermentation depending on how long it has been fermented and at what temperature. The fermentation process “sweats” the tobacco. As the tobacco is subjected to sustained high temperatures, a good portion of the nicotine will be lost in the process.

Finally, the nicotine dosage in a particular cigar depends on the tobacco leaves used. Nicotine levels vary from tobacco plant species to species (e.g., corojo leaves have a greater nicotine content than Connecticut broadleaf) and the location on the plant the tobacco leaves are harvested from. Leaves taken from top of the tobacco plant (ligero) have a much higher level of nicotine than leaves taken from the bottom (volado). This is because the top of the plant is exposed to more stressful conditions (e.g., sun, wind, and rain) and thus must draw more nutrients to survive. These nutrients become the source of nicotine development in the plant.

Behavioral Effects of Nicotine on the Cigar Smoker

The subjective effects of nicotine can generally be classified into both adverse and pleasurable. Figure 1 illustrates how nicotine can mediate between adverse and pleasurable effects depending both on experience and nicotine dose (Perkins et al., 1993). In this study, the subjective responses to different doses of nicotine were compared for smokers and non-smokers.

Figure 1. Subjective Responses to Different Doses of Nicotine in Smokers and Non-Smokers [POMS=Profile of Mood States; VAS=Visual Analog Scales.]

Click on Figure above for larger image

Adverse Effects: Whereas adverse feelings such as “light-headed”, “jittery”, “dizzy”, and “head rush” are larger in non-smokers than smokers, the pleasurable feelings such as “relaxed”, “vigor” and “arousal” tended to be higher in smokers. Notice that the magnitude of many of these effects is dose dependent—increasing from left to right. Figure 1 clearly shows that, while non-smokers experience more negative effects from nicotine administration than smokers, both smokers and non-smokers will increase in negative perceptions as more and more nicotine is ingested.

Why are there such larger differences in the experiences associated with nicotine usage for non-smokers and smokers? Tolerance is the answer of course. First consider the adverse effects. The dizziness, light-headedness and nausea experienced during smoking are primarily due to the effect of nicotine on the organs in our inner ear responsible for maintaining our posture and balance (vestibular system). The binding of nicotine to the receptors in the vestibular system effectively produces motion-sickness-like symptoms. With repeated exposure, the nicotine receptors in the vestibular system produce a smaller reaction to a given dose of nicotine often called persistent inactivation (Sparks & Pauly, 1999), so that it takes a much larger dose to produce these adverse effects in an experienced smoker. It is important to note that adverse effects will still occur at the highest doses even for experienced smokers (see Figure 1). If the level of these effects is very high (as is often the case with a novice smoker), they tend to completely mask any pleasurable sensations from smoking.

Pleasurable Effects: It has been shown that the brain areas involved in the pleasurable effects of nicotine are the same ones that are involved in the pleasurable effects experienced from certain drugs, from food, and from sex—the areas in our midbrain that use the chemical dopamine. With repeated usage of nicotine there is some evidence of “persistent inactivation” (i.e., a decreased response to nicotine) in these dopamine receptors, however this process is partially counteracted by an effect called up-regulation where your brain increases the number of dopamine receptors that respond nicotine (Perkins, 2002). In other words, we do not become fully tolerant. This explains why the pleasurable effects of nicotine can be experienced at relatively small doses in experienced smokers, as shown in Figure 1.

To summarize, the adverse and pleasurable experiences a smoker has in response to the nicotine in a cigar depend both on dosage and experience. In most cases, when an inexperienced cigar smoker tries a cigar with high nicotine content, like a La Flor Dominicana Double Ligero or Opus X, the effects in the vestibular system and dopamine system will be very strong but the adverse vestibular effects such as nausea and dizziness will completely mask the pleasurable effects. That is why cigar reviewers frequently recommend that only experienced smokers try stronger cigars. Without the nicotine tolerance, it is likely smoking one of these cigars will be highly un-enjoyable, thus negatively affecting the results of the review.

After an individual has more experience with smoking cigars, tolerance will begin to occur whereby the nicotine receptors will produce less of a response in the brain for a given dosage. This will mean that the adverse effects will be much less intense, allowing the pleasurable effects to be unmasked. Furthermore, as a result of increasing the number of dopamine receptors in the brain (up-regulation), the pleasurable effects may become even stronger with repeated exposure.

* Note: This may not always be the case since manufacturers will often use different tobacco blends for the different vitolas in a particular cigar line.

References:

Perkins, K. A. (2002). Chronic tolerance to nicotine in humans and its relationship to tobacco dependence. Nicotine & Tobacco Research, 4, 405-422.

Perkins, K. A., Grobe, J. E., Epstein, L. H., Caggiula, A., Stiller, R. L., & Jacob, R. G. (1993). Chronic and acute tolerance to subjective effects of nicotine. Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior, 45, 375-381.

Sparks, J. A. & Pauly, J. R. (1999). Effects of continuous nicotine administration on brain nicotinic receptors. Psychopharmacology, 141 ,145-153.

Rob Gray is Stogie Fresh’s resident “Cigar Science Guy.” He is an educator, researcher and writer. Rob conducts research in Human Factors Psychology at Arizona State University.

Rob is a regular contributor to the Stogie Fresh Cigar Journal.