Aims and objectives: This study aimed to determine the attitudes of medical students about tobacco taxes, and to evaluate how price policies were reflected in the pattern of tobacco product use.
 
Methods: This is a cross-sectional study carried out in a Medical School in Istanbul. The school had 1550 undergraduate students, all of whom were invited to participate. Data were collected through an online survey. Chi-square and Fisher's tests were used to compare categorical data. p<0.05 was determined as the statistical significance level.
 

Results: A total of 529 students participated in the study and 55.1% were women. While 68.2% of the participants had never smoked, 13.7% had quit and 17.9% were active smokers. Of the 168 participants who had quit smoking ; 51.8% reported not to being affected by the increases in tobacco taxes. 30.4% were partially and 8.9% were considerably affected. While 21.2% of those affected by taxes quit smoking, 63.6% decreased the number of cigarettes they used.

The proportion of students affected by tax increases in low-medium and high economic status were 49.0% and 32.1%, respectively (p=0.044). The proportion of students finding tobacco tax as high in never-smokers, quitters, and current smokers were 23.3%, 50.0%, and 66.0%, respectively (p<0.001).

Conclusions: Only half of the smokers were affected by tax increases, and only one-fifth of those quit smoking. Some of the users had switched to rolled tobacco and smuggled products. Those with high economic status are less affected by taxes than those with poor economic status. Tax increase changes attitude but are not enough for effective tobacco control unless reinforced by other prevention and control strategies.