Candy-, fruit- and alcohol-flavored cigarettes will be harder to find now that a major manufacturer has agreed to stop selling them in Hawai'i and 38 other states.

The settlement with R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. means that all flavored Camels, Kools and Salem cigarettes will be removed from the shelves and will make it difficult for the company to market these cigarettes to youth in the future.

Included in the ban are the hula-girl-themed Kaua'i Koladas that Gov. Linda Lingle asked the manufacturer to stop marketing in 2004.

In his announcement of the agreement yesterday, Attorney General Mark Bennett said, "This settlement will help our kids in a very real way and the agreement not to sell 'Kaua'i Kolada' cigarettes will ban a practice particularly offensive to Hawai'i."

Anti-tobacco advocates call the settlement a good first step, but they will continue to push for a total ban of all flavored tobacco products.

A bill that would do that died during the past legislative session, but Deborah Zysman, director of the Coalition for a Tobacco Free Hawai'i, expects a refined version to be introduced next year.

In the meantime, she said, "We hope that all the large manufacturers will sign on to this settlement as well."

However, Zysman noted that smaller tobacco manufacturers have been cropping up, so a full ban that addresses all tobacco products, not just cigarettes, would be ideal.

It is unclear what effect this agreement will have on cigarette sales.

The flavored cigarettes are not widely sold and tend to be marketed near universities, college campuses and schools where teens and young adults gather, Zysman said. "The way they're marketed, they're short-term products, hip and cool and underground," she said. "These are not the products showing up at Costco and Longs."

However, they are often the products that get kids hooked on nicotine, since flavors like Cinnzabar, Winter MochaMint and Midnight Berry make cigarettes more palatable.

"We call them cigarettes with training wheels on them," Zysman said.

While tobacco companies have argued that the flavored cigarettes are marketed at adults looking to change brands, a 2005 survey by the Roswell Park Cancer Institute shows that young smokers are more likely to give them a try.

According to the survey, 20 percent of smokers between 17 and 19 had tried the flavored cigarettes in the past month, while only 6 percent of those over 25 had.

The agreement with R.J. Reynolds grew out of the 1998 master settlement agreement's prohibition on targeting youth.

The attorneys general argued that R.J. Reynolds was violating the settlement by using youth-friendly flavors and marketing strategies.

The new agreement will prohibit R.J. Reynolds from using the names of candy, fruit or alcohol in its names of products, advertising and packaging and will ban the company from distributing scented promotional materials such as "Lift and Sniffs" or "Scratch and Sniffs."

Reach Treena Shapiro at tshapiro@honoluluadvertiser.com.