GORDON BECK, GAZETTE / "Nicotine droop" warning fails to stop smoker in the background lighting up.

Thirteen-year-old Julie Primeau and three girlfriends shared coffee and gossip at a downtown A.L. Van Houtte yesterday afternoon.

They also shared a pack of Du Maurier cigarettes.

Primeau is exactly the type of smoker Health Canada had in mind when it designed mandatory cigarette package labels that include graphic pictures of anything from decaying teeth to rotting lungs. Health Canada hopes the images will persuade Canadian smokers, especially young ones, to put out their cigarettes for good.

"The intention is really to discourage young people from smoking," said Andrew Swift of Health Canada, adding that 621,000 Canadians under the age of 19 are smokers.

But packages sporting the new labels, which hit the streets on Saturday, don't seem to be having much effect on Montreal's teenage smokers.

"They scare me a bit," said Julie, a Grade 7 student who has been smoking for a year. "But it doesn't stop me from smoking. I like it too much to quit."

For Michael Gobelle, 16, the images echo the warnings he says he has been told a million times.

"It has no effect on me," he said, holding a cigarette in his right hand. "The pictures are just telling me what I already know. I already know that smoking is bad for me."

But Health Canada insists the labels, which were initially approved by the government in June, will give old warnings a new edge.

"The old warning labels on cigarette packs were being tuned out," Swift said. "They needed to be more noticeable to get attention, more shocking."

The 16 "shocking" labels include statements like "Smoking causes strokes," accompanied by a photo of a clogged brain artery, and "Smoking can make you impotent," together with a picture of a drooping cigarette.

All cigarette packages printed in Canada after Dec. 23 are required to carry one of the 16 messages, a regulation that has cost tobacco companies $30 million.

But cigarette vendors say the messages aren't scaring youths.

"We've been selling these things this week and there's no reaction to them at all - not in young people or in old people," said Claude Wakim of Depanneur Jarry in St. Leonard. "Sales have not dropped at all."

At a Couche-Tard in Cote des Neiges, there has been a reaction to the warning label, but not one that would make Health Canada happy.

"Young people find them funny," said employee Mike Pettipas, explaining that he sold about 60 packs with the new labels yesterday. "They're so gross that they're laughing at them."

Youth smokers insist it will take a lot more than a graphic picture to make them butt out.

"Something has to make you really want to quit," said smoker Gobelle, who has smoked for a year. "It won't be the pictures."

Adeeb J., 15, a Grade 9 student who would not give his last name because his parents don't know he smokes, said he would have to find something to replace cigarettes before he abandoned his habit.

"I like to smoke," he said. "Find me something new to do that's cool and exciting, and then I'll quit smoking."