Q:

Are anti-smoking advertisements in actuality promoting smoking through use of reverse psychology?

Years ago, I had a friend who was both a heavy smoker and a noted contrarian.  One day as we were driving past a large anti-tobacco billboard he told me he thought that telling smokers not smoke was actually the best way to promote smoking, since it can't be legally advertised (on television, radio, and some publications) in the US.  He also vowed to smoke a cigarette every time he saw one.
Tobacco advertising has long been criticized for targeting children and teenagers, as evidenced by the removal of "joe camel" from the advertising of Camel cigarettes. Given the typically rebellious behavior noted in teenagers, it would stand to a certain kind of reason that these advertisements could actually encourage them to smoke, or at least be unconvincing to those who had already decided to smoke. Running across articles like this indicates that my contrarian friend isn't the only person to hold this view.
Have anti-smoking campaigns and
 advertisements been shown to (either
 intentionally or unintentionally)
 promote smoking, either by
 encouraging new smokers to start, or
 by encouraging those who have already
 developed the habit to smoke more?

A:

Yes.
ScienceDaily summarised an investigation into this by a group at the University of Georgia:
They found that, overall, the more the students were exposed to anti-smoking messages, the more inclined they were to smoke. The exception -- where exposure to anti-smoking ads correlated with a reduced intention to smoke -- occurred among students who said their friends were influenced by anti-smoking messages
Reference: University of Georgia (2007, July 20). Why Some Anti-smoking Ads Succeed And Others Backfire. ScienceDaily.

A:

Warning labels on Cigarette packs do seem to work to some degree.

Results:   Of smokers, 14% became less inclined to purchase cigarettes
  because of the new warnings, 31.8% said they prefer to purchase a pack
  without the new warnings, 17.9% reported that warnings increased their
  motivated to quit and 10.3% said they smoked less. A strong
  dose-response relationship was observed between these effects and
  intention to quit.   CONCLUSIONS:    The new warnings made cigarette
  packs less attractive, especially to smokers who already intended to
  stop smoking

Reference pubmed

A survey of 8,836 people 15 and older in the Netherlands in 2002 found
  that 16% of the 2,812 smokers surveyed said that new, larger health
  warnings made them more motivated to quit, (this was 26% among smokers
  who intend to quit at some point); 8.7% said they were already smoking
  less as a result of the new warnings. Surveys find that a high
  proportion of smokers (for example, 70% in Canada) want to quit.
  Strong health warnings and information about where to turn for help in
  quitting help reinforce this attitude (Mahood 1995).
  Reference: http://www.worldbank.org/

