This Article Appeared in a Journal Published by Elsevier. the Attached
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the author for internal non-commercial research and education use, including for instruction at the authors institution and sharing with colleagues. Other uses, including reproduction and distribution, or selling or licensing copies, or posting to personal, institutional or third party websites are prohibited. In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier’s archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: http://www.elsevier.com/copyright Author's personal copy Drug and Alcohol Dependence 113 (2011) 207–214 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Drug and Alcohol Dependence journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/drugalcdep Validity of a demand curve measure of nicotine reinforcement with adolescent smokers James G. Murphy a,c,∗, James MacKillop b,c, Jennifer W. Tidey c, Linda A. Brazil c, Suzanne M. Colby c a Department of Psychology, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN 38152, United States b Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602-3013, United States c Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies, Brown University, Providence, RI 02903, United States article info abstract Article history: High or inelastic demand for drugs is central to many laboratory and theoretical models of drug abuse, but Received 4 November 2009 it has not been widely measured with human substance abusers. The authors used a simulated cigarette Received in revised form 3 August 2010 purchase task to generate a demand curve measure of nicotine reinforcement in a sample of 138 ado- Accepted 6 August 2010 lescent smokers. Participants reported the number of cigarettes they would purchase and smoke in a Available online 15 September 2010 hypothetical day across a range of prices, and their responses were well-described by a regression equa- tion that has been used to construct demand curves in drug self-administration studies. Several demand Keywords: curve measures were generated, including breakpoint, intensity, elasticity, P , and O . Although sim- Tobacco max max Smoking ulated cigarette smoking was price sensitive, smoking levels were high (8+ cigarettes/day) at prices up to Adolescents 50¢ per cigarette, and the majority of the sample reported that they would purchase at least 1 cigarette Behavioral economics at prices as high as $2.50 per cigarette. Higher scores on the demand indices Omax (maximum cigarette Reinforcement purchase expenditure), intensity (reported smoking level when cigarettes were free), and breakpoint Demand curve (the first price to completely suppress consumption), and lower elasticity (sensitivity of cigarette con- Nicotine dependence sumption to increases in cost), were associated with greater levels of naturalistic smoking and nicotine Motivation dependence. Greater demand intensity was associated with lower motivation to change smoking. These results provide initial support for the validity of a self-report cigarette purchase task as a measure of economic demand for nicotine with adolescent smokers. © 2010 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Hypothetical drug purchase tasks are modeled after laboratory drug self-administration procedures, but use hypothetical choices Behavioral economic theories of addiction view substance between drug and monetary amounts that are analogous to the dependence as a state in which the reinforcing efficacy of drugs choices participants would make in a laboratory drug administra- is high in comparison to the reinforcing efficacy of other activities tion procedure (Griffiths et al., 1996; Jacobs and Bickel, 1999; Petry that are available in an individual’s environment (e.g., Loewenstein, and Bickel, 1998). For example, the initial question may assess drug 1999; Rachlin, 1997; Murphy et al., 2009a,b). Within this behavioral or alcohol purchases at zero cost per unit (e.g., a single cigarette or economic framework, demand curves have been used to describe alcoholic beverage), with subsequent questions gradually increas- the reinforcement efficacy of a drug or a specific dose of a drug ing in price up to a level at which consumption is drastically within a specific context (Bickel et al., 2000). Demand curves plot suppressed (e.g., $5 for a cigarette). The reported purchases can consumption of a drug across a range of response costs or “prices,” then be used to generate an individual’s demand curve for the and have demonstrated utility in preclinical research aimed at substance: a quantitative representation of their estimated con- assessing the abuse liability of drugs or response to an experimental sumption across a range of prices. Several reinforcement indices manipulation (for a review, see Hursh and Silberberg, 2008). can be generated from demand curves, including demand intensity Recently several investigators have developed cost-efficient (number of cigarettes or drinks consumed when price = 0), Omax measures of drug demand that do not involve actual drug con- (maximum expenditure), Pmax (the price at which demand become sumption and therefore can be administered in clinical settings elastic), breakpoint (the price which completely suppresses con- in which actual drug consumption is prohibited or inadvisable. sumption) and elasticity (the rate of decrease in consumption as a function of price). Advantages of these tasks are their close resemblance to the ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 901 678 2630; fax: +1 901 678 2579. laboratory tasks after which they are modeled and their abil- E-mail address: [email protected] (J.G. Murphy). ity to yield precise quantitative measures of participants’ choices 0376-8716/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2010.08.004 Author's personal copy 208 J.G. Murphy et al. / Drug and Alcohol Dependence 113 (2011) 207–214 (demand curves; Jacobs and Bickel, 1999). Simulation procedures The aim of the current study was to replicate and extend these have been widely used in experimental economics (Camerer, 1999), findings with a sample of adolescent smokers. First, we were inter- and in behavioral economic studies of addiction. For example, over ested in characterizing the impact of cigarette price on adolescent 20 published studies provide strong support for the reliability, smoking. Although epidemiological data attest to the price sensi- validity, and utility of the hypothetical delayed reward discount- tivity of adolescent smoking initiation, smoking level, and smoking ing (DRD) task with a variety of human populations (see Green cessation (Chaloupka, 2003; Powell et al., 2005), the CPT allows for and Myerson, 2004 for a review). Specifically, results suggest that a more thorough investigation of reported demand for cigarettes although an individual’s absolute level of discounting may vary across a wide range of prices, and also for the exploration of indi- across real versus hypothetical discounting paradigms, the relative vidual difference variables associated with price sensitivity, than level of discounting across paradigms is similar, as are the rela- is possible with epidemiological data on cigarette demand. Specif- tions with naturalistic drug use (Madden et al., 2004). Although ically, we investigated the ability of the CPT to generate prototypic only a few studies have examined hypothetical purchase tasks, one demand curve data and the relationships between CPT variables study found a high degree of correspondence between choices on and baseline smoking rate and nicotine dependence level. We also a hypothetical alcohol purchase task and actual laboratory based sought to examine the relationship between demand and motiva- demand for alcohol (MacKillop et al., 2010a), and another study tion to change smoking. In this case, we hypothesized that the CPT found that the reported consumption values and reinforcement demand measures would be negatively related to motivation to metrics derived from a hypothetical alcohol purchase task demon- change smoking. Individuals for whom smoking is a more potent strated good to excellent test–retest reliability (Murphy et al., reinforcer will express less interest in reducing their smoking. 2009b). Although preclinical laboratory demand curve analyses have 2. Method typically evaluated the reinforcing efficacy of several drug types 2.1. Recruitment or doses (Winger et al., 2002), hypothetical drug purchase tasks can assess potentially meaningful individual differences in suscep- Participants were recruited using newspaper, radio, and public transportation tibility to drug reinforcement. In this context, economic demand advertisements, and with flyers and presentations in public and private high schools may reflect strength of desire for drugs (i.e., motivational salience in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Interested students called the research lab to complete a confidential screening interview. To be eligible, participants had to: 1) of drugs), and may vary across individuals, or within an individual be current smokers; 2) report smoking at least once in the prior two weeks; 3) be over time or across contexts. The demand metrics may thus have enrolled in high school (grades 9–12); and 4) read and understand English. Students clinical utility (MacKillop et al., 2010b); individual differences in were ineligible if they reported other (non-cigarette) tobacco use