That would certainly thwart the impact of the Camel No. 9 campaign, whose ads use shiny paper, sophisticated colors like teal and fuchsia and accents of lace to achieve a sense of feminine chic. Those ads have provoked accusations, including from a group of U.S. senators, that R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., maker of Camels, is trying to lure teens and younger women to smoke. (The company says it seeks only to sway established adult smokers.)

But they've also aroused anger at the magazines printing the ads. The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids says volunteers around the country sent Vogue more than 8,000 protest e-mails or faxes earlier this month. It says it got no response, other than a couple of scribbled notes faxed back on letters that had been addressed to editor Anna Wintour. "Will you stop? You're killing trees!" read one note shown to The AP.

A spokeswoman for Conde Nast Publications, which publishes Vogue, said neither Wintour nor publisher Thomas Florio were available for an interview. "Vogue does carry tobacco advertising. Beyond that we have no further comment," said the spokeswoman, Maurie Perl. She also said no one at Glamour, Lucky or W, also Conde Nast publications, would be available. Editors at Essence magazine, which also carries tobacco ads and is owned by Time Inc., also declined comment.

Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, says that while print ads are on the decline, he's still concerned about fashion magazines, and especially the iconic Vogue, because "they have far more impact on teenage girls than almost any other written media. And that's the reason the tobacco industry is in these magazines."

Magazine analyst Samir Husni says it's "oddly hypocritical" for magazines to run articles about health issues, including cancer, and then have tobacco ads nearby. "What they're saying is that they value their ad customers more than their million or two million readers," says Husni, of the University of Mississippi. "Country after country is banning cigarette ads in magazines."

Tobacco companies spent $13.1 billion on promotional spending in 2005, the last year for which there were figures, according to a recent report by the Federal Trade Commission. Most of that went into price discounts for consumers. On magazine ads, they spent $17.2 million in the first quarter of 2007, according to the Magazine Publishers of America.

A number of magazines refuse to accept tobacco ads: just a few are Men's Health, Self, and Money, according to a list provided by the Tobacco-Free Periodicals Project.

But most fashion magazines do. In current June issues, for example, Lucky, Vogue and Glamour have Pall Mall ads in bright orange. Harper's Bazaar advertises American Spirit and Camel No. 9 in an issue that interviews Cate Edwards, daughter of Elizabeth Edwards, about her mother's fight against advanced breast cancer.