Promoting Flavored cigarettes Hurting Anti smoking Campaigns?

In Norway it’s not allowed to promote cigarettes, and anti-smoking campaigns are all over us, but do they have any effect? I am not really sure, if you don’t look at the statistics (because sometimes statistics lie), I still see a lot of people smoking and especially young kids.

But what can governments do, when companies like Philip Morris are making new kind of cigarettes targeting young kids (Philip Morris have not stated that they are targeting young kids)? If they were not targeting young kids, they would still be selling their “old” cigarettes, the ones that has been around for a long time… this way the anti smoking campaigns might have greater effect.

But now they are selling flavored cigarettes, cigarrettes that might not taste like cigarettes anymore (I don’t know what they taste like, but can only imagine). This is a way to reach new groups of people, people that are not familiar with smoking and might not like it, until they try the flavored ones.

In the US and probably in a lot of countries, people hired by the tobacco companies are trying to influence the politicians behind the scenes. How do we know if the lobbyists are successful or not? We never get much information about what is happening behind the scenes. This is not only related to the tobacco industry, but I am a little worried that if they manage to introduce the flavored cigarettes around the world, the anti smoking campaigns might lose their effect (if they have any effect).