Higher cigarette prices induce smoking cessation among both young adults and middle-aged and older adults.

Recent research conducted in the United States has concluded that higher cigarette prices increase the probability of smoking cessation and decrease the duration of smoking. Estimates from this research suggests that a 10% increase in the price of cigarettes raises the probability of a cessation attempt by up to 10% and raises the probability of successful cessation by approximately 3.5%. Moreover, research from the United Kingdom has concluded that a 10% increase in cigarette taxes (which will increase the price of cigarettes) results in a 4%-6% decline in the number of years smoked. A Russian study based on six waves of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey of Economy and Health for 1994 to 2001 confirms that cigarette price remains a key factor for quitting smoking, even in a country with limited tobacco control measures.

1. Tauras JA. Public policy and smoking cessation among young adults in the United States. Health Policy 2004; 68: 321-332. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15113643&dopt=Abstract
2. Tauras JA, Chaloupka FJ. Determinants of smoking cessation: an analysis of young adult men and women. In Economics of Substance Abuse. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=202419
3. Arzhenovsky SV. Socioeconomic Determinants of Smoking in Contemporary Russia. Moscow: Economic Education and Research Consortium (EERC) 2005 No 05/12.
4. Forster M, Jones A. The role of tobacco taxes in starting and quitting smoking: duration analysis of British data. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 2001; 164: 517-547. http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=14168318