Research scheduled for publication today suggests it is harder for blacks than whites to kick the habit, but two local anti-smoking authorities don't buy it, and another gives it a big so-what.
Sally Lebowitz, president of the Pittsburgh chapter of Smokenders, said she heard about the studies but discounts them.
"I can't imagine blacks metabolize nicotine slower than whites; that just doesn't add up," Lebowitz said of the findings. "I would definitely not put much value in it."
Bill Godshall, executive director of the Squirrel Hill-based SmokeFree Pennsylvania, said the differences between black and white smokers has been studied for years.
The studies have found that blacks smoke menthol cigarettes at a higher rate than whites, and blacks don't start smoking until later in life. But Godshall said he has never seen proof of any metabolic or chemical differences in how blacks and whites deal with nicotine.
Dr. Ken Perkins, a psychologist and director of UPMC's Women's Smoking Cessation Project, said the research reminds him of other studies done at Ohio State University and the University of California at San Francisco, the latter university having spawned one of the reports published today.
Perkins said research earlier has shown black women "had greater exposure per unit of cigarette" to nicotine than white women. The why is unexplained.
Some have tried to reason that because blacks, overall, experience less favorable economic situations than whites, they inhale deeper and longer to get as much as possible from each cigarette.
Perkins said that is not true.
While the new research claimed to backup previous studies indicating blacks try to quit more often and less successfully, Perkins said that's also misleading.
In his experience, whites have been more likely to sign up for cessation programs. He didn't know of a way to measure who might be trying on their own to quit.
One reason whites are more likely to join a cessation program, Perkins said, is because of greater social pressures to quit.
He hasn't read the research, but Perkins said he didn't believe it was groundbreaking stuff.
Nicotine, after all, is not the carcinogenic enemy in cigarettes. Perkins said belief that magical nicotine thresholds held the key to smoking frequency is antiquated.
The number of cigarettes smoked in a day depends more on stress and habit.
Even if nicotine thresholds did spur smoking, the only point of knowing what the studies claim to have found would be to develop drugs that could speed up metabolism of nicotine in blacks or speed its exit from the body.
In the end, the research may be irrelevant, Perkins said.
"I don't want to downplay it too much, but smoking is much more than a specific level of nicotine in the body," he said. "I'm not sure what you really do with this."
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