All my smoker friends ....PAY ATTENTION PLEASE!!!!!!

clipped from www.sciencedaily.com Why Quitting Smoking Is So Difficult ScienceDaily (Nov. 8, 2007) — New findings clarify the brain mechanisms that explain many aspects of dependency on nicotine, the addictive substance in tobacco. Among them: Individual differences in brain chemistry can have a profound effect on a person's susceptibility to addiction, and smoking may predispose adolescents to mental disorders in adolescence and adulthood. In addition, researchers have identified a potential neural network that regulates the body's craving response and have demonstrated how smoking may affect decision-making. "As the negative health consequences of smoking have become more and more obvious, the majority of smokers have attempted to quit," says Marina Picciotto, PhD, of Yale University. "Unfortunately, people who want to quit often find that they cannot, and recent neuroscience research has identified many of the molecular mechanisms that lead to nicotine addiction.