American Cattle: Their History, Breeding And Management

Smoking experts used to think that 90 to 95 percent of all those who smoked were regular smokers. But several years ago, the smoking questions on the federal government's national health survey were made more specific, and researchers discovered, to their astonishment, that a fifth of all smokers don't smoke every day. There are millions of Americans, in other words, who manage to smoke regularly and not be hooked — people for whom smoking is contagious but not sticky. In the past few years, these "chippers" — as they have been dubbed — have been exhaustively studied, with the bulk of the work being done by University of Pittsburgh psychologist Saul Shiftman. Shiftman's definition of a chipper is someone who smokes no more than five cigarettes a day but who smokes at least four days a week. As Shiftman writes: Chippers' smoking varies considerably from day to day, and their smoking patterns often include days of complete abstinence. Chippers reported little difficulty maintaining such casual abstinence and reportedly experienced almost no withdrawal symptoms when abstaining from smoking… Unlike regular smokers who smoke soon on waking to replenish the nicotine that has cleared overnight, chippers go several hours before smoking their first cigarette of the day ...»