Is there differential responsiveness to a future cigarette price increase depending on adolescents’ source of cigarette access?

We examined whether the responsiveness to an increase in cigarettes price differed by adolescents' cigarette acquisition source. We analyzed data on 6134 youth smokers (grades 7-12) from a cross-sectional survey in Korea with national representativeness. The respondents were classified into one of the following according to their source of cigarette acquisition: commercial-source group, social-source group, and others. Multiple logistic regressions were performed to estimate the effects of an increase in cigarette price on the intention to quit smoking on the basis of the cigarette acquisition source. Of the 6134 youth smokers, 36.0% acquired cigarettes from social sources, compared to the 49.6% who purchased cigarettes directly from commercial sources. In response to a future cigarette price increase, regardless of an individual's smoking level, there was no statistically significant difference in the odds ratio for the intention to stop smoking in association with cigarette acquisition sources. The social-source group had nonsignificant, but consistently positive, odds ratios (1.07-1.30) as compared to that of the commercial-source group. Our findings indicate that the cigarette acquisition source does not affect the responsiveness to an increase in cigarette price. Therefore, a cigarette price policy is a comprehensive strategy to reduce smoking among youth smokers, regardless of their source.