Taxation is one of the most effective means of tobacco control, but tobacco companies often argue that imposing or raising taxes on cigarettes will be counterproductive. Guindon and colleagues1 analyzed the case of British American Tobacco (BAT) in Chile and concluded that increased cigarette prices and nonprice tobacco control policies were associated with a reduction in cigarette smoking initiation. Their analyses suggest that higher cigarette prices—in this case, the result of BAT’s own pricing policy—were associated with reduced hazards of smoking initiation among youths and counter the notion commonly advanced by the tobacco industry that taxation increases black market sales
