Personally I wonder if switching from the term 'smoker' to something more accurately describing the experience for people around them, maybe something like 'stinker' and 'horrible stinker' instead of 'heavy smoker' might help reduce the appeal.
The exact opposite has happened, because "smoking" was a bad term, now it is "vaping" and that sounds cool, doesn't it. That's also the way smoking made a comeback with young people, vaping and tabak tabacco with sweet tastes and nice scent and shisha bars.
In my experience the smell dissipates into the air alot quicker. I've been in parking lots and smell cigarettes and look around and the closest possible source is like 50 ft away. If the wind is wafting it straight towards you cigerettes smell alot further away and stronger, not to mention its a gross ass smell compared to vapes