Of those who make it to age 18 without smoking, only about one out of 10 will become a smoker. So if the cigarette companies are not targeting underage smokers, they must be the luckiest people in the world. They are hooking most of their future customers with no effort on their part. It's an article of faith among economists that the best way to discourage any activity is to make it more expensive. It would probably do more to discourage new smokers from taking up the habit than getting old ones to give it up.
Addiction is addiction.
But if those higher prices do the job, in a couple of generations the profitable business of tobacco would be virtually out of business. And that's no way to keep the stockholders happy or stock options coming for the top executives. The tobacco companies are using two main arguments to counteract that drive to impose higher taxes. The first is based on logic. Make smokes too expensive and we'll see a lot more smuggling from low-tax jurisdictions.