Genetics of addiction

Surveys show that most young people (more than two-thirds by age 18) try tobacco at some point. Most adults who smoke on a daily basis (nearly nine out of 10 of them) began smoking as adolescents. Why do some young people become habitual users of tobacco, and others stop before they become addicted to nicotine?

Young people initiate tobacco use for a variety of reasons — influence from their parents’ behavior, their peers, tobacco advertising and media portrayals of tobacco use. Our researchers have already demonstrated that susceptibility to nicotine addiction is to some extent genetically mediated. Reliable answers to the following questions can help refine and more precisely target prevention interventions, and lead to new and more effective pharmaceutical treatments for those already addicted:

• What are the relative contributions of genes and environment in the    development of tobacco dependency?

• What is the prevalence of genetic vulnerability to nicotine by ethnicity,
   by gender, by region?

• What specific genes are implicated in nicotine addiction?

• By what mechanisms are these genes acting to mediate vulnerability?