People ages 20-24 are more likely to start smoking when cigarette prices drop, according to a Canadian study that looked at the effect of provinces lowering tobacco taxes in response to cigarette smuggling in the 1990s.

The Health Behavior News Service reported May 26 that officials in five Canadian provinces cut tobacco taxes by C$14-21 per carton to prevent smuggling in the early 1990s, after a long period of raising taxes to discourage smoking.

"We found that a big decrease in cigarette price resulted in an increase in smoking initiation among young adults," said lead researcher Joanna Cohen of the University of Toronto's Department of Health Services. In provinces where taxes stayed high, 8.5 percent of young adults became smokers during the study period, while 10.5 percent started smoking in provinces where taxes were cut.

"People were interviewed at one point of time, and then another, and in between there was this huge change in price," Cohen explained, adding: "Two percentage points in a big population turns out to be a lot of people. When you're talking about the numbers of kids who are smoking, that's huge."

Alison Albers, a tobacco policy researcher at the Boston University School of Public Health, said the findings were especially significant given that the tobacco industry has stepped up its marketing to young adults, such as through promotions in bars and restaurants. "Young-adult smokers, if they are in the initiation phase of smoking, are likely to undergo a transition to nonsmoking or heavier smoking," she said. "It's really sort of a critical time, and one that's been largely ignored."

The Canadian study concluded that raising taxes could help prevent young adults from becoming smokers. "Since smoking habits tend to become firmly established in early adulthood, reducing smoking initiation in this age group is likely to lead to permanent reductions in cigarette smoking through adult life," the authors wrote.

The study was published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.