Cigarette ads are slowly returning to Canadian newspapers and magazines after a decade-long absence, and anti-smoking groups are calling on the government to extinguish the resurgence.

Tobacco companies refrained from television and print advertising for nearly 10 years as they waited for the Supreme Court to clarify the laws. In the summer of 2007, the court ruled that television ads are still illegal, but print ads can run — with some restrictions.

Under the new rules, print advertisements must show only a package or two of cigarettes and cannot show models smiling and enjoying a puff.

"The lifestyle ads of the '70s and '80s are a thing of the past," explained André Benoît of JTI MacDonald, the tobacco company doing the most advertising.

"I think what we're trying to do is get smokers to switch to our brands or to at least try the new brands that we've put on the market."

Physicians group calls for ban

But Cynthia Callard, who runs Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada, told CBC News that she feels any type of tobacco advertising is too much.

"We think in this particular case, these ads are really a trial run," she said of recent spreads in Toronto papers.

"But what the companies are doing is establishing a beachhead, letting the door crack wider and wider open so that we can anticipate that we will see more — and worse — advertising in the future."

As a result, she said, Ottawa should ban all tobacco advertising.

The issue is more complex for the print organizations running the advertisements. Toronto entertainment paper Eye Weekly opts to carry the ads.

"Cigarettes are legal. Cars pollute. Fast food kills people with heart attacks. And what does alcohol do? I mean, it's the same thing. There's evil in every product," said the paper's editorial director Alan Vernon.

But competing Toronto entertainment weekly Now said it has no space for cigarette ads.

"The biggest thing we have going for us is our integrity and that's how we sell advertising, so that's where we draw the line," said editor Alice Klein.

Health Canada is currently conducting a review of Canada's smoking legislation.