Effects of Tobacco Abuse Liability-dependent Taxes in the ETM

In the control condition, participants will purchase tobacco/nicotine products in the ETM. Cigarettes will increase in price across trials.

In the product category score condition, participants will purchase tobacco/nicotine products in the ETM where the percentage of taxes applied to each product category will be distributed between 0% and 100% proportional to their abuse liability score. Abuse liability scores will be scaled such that the product category with the highest abuse liability will be taxed at 100%.

In the product category rank condition, participants will purchase tobacco/nicotine products in the ETM where the tax percentage applied to each product category will be determined by the number of categories and their position in the ranking. The product category with the highest abuse liability will be taxed at 100%; the product with the lowest abuse liability will be taxed at 0%. All other tax rates will be equally spaced across other products based on ranking.

In the product tiers condition, participants will purchase tobacco/nicotine products in the ETM where tobacco products will be placed in tax tiers to simplify the existing complex tobacco tax system. The investigators will use three tax tiers (i.e., high tax, medium tax, and no tax), as adopted by four states. Products will be placed into tiers depending on their average score (i.e. no tax: \< 0.33, medium tax: 0.33-0.66, and high tax: \>0.66). Products in the high tax tier will be taxed at 100% and products in the medium tax tier will be taxed at 50%.