Nicotine Abuse, Essay Example

The author of the article cites the issue that the existence of therapeutics to help individuals fight their tobacco addiction is not sufficient. A majority of drugs that are currently on the market work by reducing the pleasure inducing effects related to the dopamine release that occurs when nicotine binds to nicotinic receptors. Currently, partial agonists and antagonists are used for the purpose of treatment, but the author postulates that antagonists are more effective.  The paper summarizes current knowledge that the medical field has with regards to the treatment of nicotine addiction. By determining the advantages and disadvantages of a variety of therapies, researchers can use this information to maximize positive effect and reducing side effects by creating new chemical structures to behave as stronger antagonists or possibly by using combination therapy with already existing therapeutics. It is therefore valuable to examine each class of drugs with a greater degree of detail in order to determine how their chemical properties can be emphasized during the treatment process. Using pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamics studies can help researchers gain a more comprehensive understanding of the drug interactions that occur in our bodies for each relevant nicotine addiction treatment drug. Thus, understanding function on the basis of chemical structure will enable us to determine the various aspects of each drug that contributes to different extents of its efficacy and inefficacy, which will allow us to compile the data we currently have on this topic and synthesize new drugs that are more effective than the ones currently used. Combining therapeutics with behavioral practices could effectively reduce nicotine and general tobacco addiction among members of the population.