PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Ali Abdolahinia AU - Vahid Moosavi AU - Simin Shafiefar AU - Nasrin Taheri AU - Makan Sadr AU - Mohammad Reza Masjedi TI - Raising cigarette prices decreases consumption without increase in smuggling: A study from Iran DP - 2013 Sep 01 TA - European Respiratory Journal PG - P1058 VI - 42 IP - Suppl 57 4099 - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/42/Suppl_57/P1058.short 4100 - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/42/Suppl_57/P1058.full SO - Eur Respir J2013 Sep 01; 42 AB - Introduction: Raising tobacco prices is one of the best initiatives for decreasing tobacco consumption.Tobacco smuggling, which is widespread in many countries such as Iran, seriously harms the public health by undermining tobacco tax policies, Tobacco companies claim that the rise of tobacco products’ prices leads to increase in tobacco smuggling.Methods: In this cross sectional study which was conducted in 2012, we divided Tehran population into five clusters and selected 546 smokers randomly. We filled out a questionnaire via face-to-face, which consisted of items such as brand, price, amount of cigarettes consumed daily, pictorial warning and tax labels placed, and fluctuation of consumption since last year. Then the data were analyzed by statistical tests.Results: About 18 percent of smokers reported that their cigarette packets had not pictorial warnings. Moreover, 19 percent of smokers said that their packets had not any tax-related label, which reveals that approximately 20 percent of tobacco products, consumed in Tehran, is illicit or smuggled. Regarding the amount of cigarette consumption, 32.2 percent mentioned that their consumption has decreased since last year; a figure which had a significant difference in comparison with smokers whose consumption had increased.(p<0.05)Conclusion: Since tobacco products prices have raised since last year, it can be concluded that raising tobacco prices could lead to decrease in consumption. Additionally, since the amount of illicit products had no significant difference with the last year’s figures mentioned in the official reports, it can be concluded that raising tobacco prices does not lead to increase in amount of smuggling.