The present study utilized retrospective reports of early experiences with smoking as supplemental phenotypic measures. Regular smokers clearly differed from never-smokers on these measures; moreover, several lines of evidence suggest that these differences are not attributable solely to selective recall of positive experiences in smokers and/or selective recall of negative experiences in never-smokers. (i) Greater sensitivity to initial cigarettes by people who subsequently become smokers has been demonstrated in a wide variety of individuals, from American adults [21] to Chinese adolescents [23]. (ii) As time from onset of smoking is more recent in adolescents than adults, demonstration of similarly enhanced sensitivity in young smokers suggests that the early-experience reports are not merely the result of recall distortion over time [22–24]. (iii) Systematic examination of test–retest reliability of subjective reactions to early smoking [38], including head rush or buzz, led to the conclusion that reliability was acceptable when response options are dichotomized (as in the present study). (iv) Using a period of abstinence to allow for dissipation of tolerance as a model for initial sensitivity, we found that retrospective reports of
