They’re called “Winter Warm Toffee,” “Kauai Kolada,” and “Twista Chill,” but the flavored cigarettes are leaving a bad taste in the mouths of lawmakers who say they should be banned because they target young people.

Anti-smoking groups have charged that tobacco companies, particularly Reynolds American Incorporated, are luring teenagers into smoking by offering flavored cigarettes and advertising them in magazines with heavy adolescent readership like Rolling Stone, Glamour, and Elle.

“These are designed to attract younger smokers,” said Michael Bopp of the American Cancer Society. “We don’t want to see a product introduced that will give back the gains we’ve made in this state in reducing teenage smoking. From a commonsense perspective, adults are not going to be interested in these products.”

A bill introduced in Congress in March gives the Food and Drug Administration power to regulate tobacco products and would ban the sale of candy flavored cigarettes. It is currently in the Senate’s Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions and in the House Subcommittee on Health.

And legislators in New York, Minnesota, West Virginia, Connecticut, Illinois, North Carolina, and Texas have proposed bills prohibiting the sale of the flavored cigarettes.

A national survey presented last week by Buffalo’s Roswell Park Cancer Institute found that 20% of smokers ages 17 to 19 used flavored cigarettes in the past 30 days while just 6% of smokers over the age of 25 did, said Dr. Gary Giovino, a senior researcher at the institute.

“Of course they’re going after kids, they’re going to be the longer-range consumers,” said Katie Spector, 17, a student at Colonie High School outside Albany who recently quit smoking after about five years.

Separately the study found that 8.6% of ninth-graders in western New York have tried flavored cigarettes in the past 30 days.

“They are using flavors to sweeten the poison,” Mr. Giovino said.

Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Reynolds American – formed by last year’s merger of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation – sells flavored versions of its Kool and Camel brands.

Fred McConnell, a spokesman for the company, said it does not target minors with its marketing. After meeting with Senator Charles Fuschillo, a sponsor of New York’s bill, Reynolds decided to stop advertising cigarettes with candy or fruit names, though the products will still be sold, he said.

“We recognize use of certain names on Camel Exotics have resulted in unintended concerns,” he said.

Currently, the company offers two Camel products – “Mandarin Mint” and “Dark Mint.” Those will no longer be advertised in magazines, newspapers, or stores, Mr. McConnell said.

Nonetheless, Mr. McConnell said, the company opposes the legislation to ban flavored cigarettes because it would also ban “conventional” cigarettes.

“Ingredients like cocoa, sugar, licorice, and menthol have been used in cigarettes for 100 years,” Mr. Mc-Connell said. “You would ban almost all cigarettes.”

The sponsor of the New York bill that would ban flavored cigarettes said he expects the measure to pass the Assembly.

“If there is an effort to discourage kids from taking up the habit, we need to go after products boutique-designed to target them,” said Assemblyman Alexander Grannis, a Democrat of Manhattan.

The measure is currently in the Senate’s Health Committee.

A spokeswoman for Altria, the maker of Marlboro and other cigarettes, Jamie Drogin, said her company does not make any candy- or fruit-flavored cigarettes and supports the proposed federal ban on those products.