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Background Raising cigarette prices through taxation is an important policy approach to reduce smoking. Yet, cigarette price increases may not be equally effective in all subpopulations of smokers. Purpose To examine differing effects of state cigarette price changes with individual changes in smoking among smokers of different intensity levels. Methods Data were derived from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions, a nationally representative sample of US adults originally interviewed in 2001–2002 (Wave 1) and re-interviewed in 2004–2005 (Wave 2): 34 653 were re-interviewed in Wave 2, and 7068 smokers defined at Wave 1 were included in our study. Mixed effects linear regressio