Trillions of cigarettes are produced every year

The tactics used by some firms to promote their products would certainly raise eyebrows in Western societies used to not seeing overt or pushy marketing.

And it is clear that the advertising works - when the major tobacco firms entered the South Korean tobacco market in the 1980s, advertising spend reportedly increased by more than 600% in three years.

WHO figures suggest smoking rates among male South Korean teenagers rose from 18% to 30% in on year, while among female teenagers the rise was from 2% to 9%.

For example, in Sri Lanka, British American Tobacco (BAT) - one of the world's biggest firms - sponsored a "Golden Tones Disco".

Young women were hired, clothed in shimmering golden saris and placed at the entrance, offering every young person arriving a free Benson and Hedges cigarette and telling them to smoke it.

In China - viewed as a key future market by major tobacco firms - BAT also sponsored a regular disco in Beijing.

Miniskirted women

The Washington Post reported that "slender Chinese women" in miniskirts were handing out cigarettes to dancers.

Emma Must, international campaign manager for Action on Smoking and Health (ASH): "You are seeing quite aggressive marketing strategies.

"This is why everybody is calling for an international treaty on tobacco control."

Although the treaty could be in place before 2003, she said she was expecting the tobacco industry to mobilise opposition to it before then.

"I think it's extremely unlikely that the whole thing could be derailed, but a lot of people are worried that it's not going to be a cakewalk."

Certainly there is a great deal at stake while the Western tobacco market continues to decline.

There are not only huge untapped markets for the major firms in various developing countries, particularly in Africa, but in many countries, the proportion of women smoking is significantly lower than men.

The World Bank estimates that by 2030, tobacco is expected to be the single biggest cause of death worldwide, accounting for about 10m deaths a year.

More than 70% of these, it says, will be in the developing world.