You're absolutely correct. The flavours mask the taste of the nicotine and the taste of cigarette, so whether or not they go on to other cigarettes or other products, it's the nicotine that is still hooking them in the little cigarette or the little cigar and moving them to want to continue nicotine.
Without these, they could look for other cigarette products, but it's better to get them off the market so that they don't get hooked. We know that if you try a cigarette when you are under the age of 20 and experiment with it, the chances are you will go on to be a smoker at some point in time, but if we can delay youth from smoking until they're about 20 or 21, they may experiment, but the chances of their becoming life-long smokers.... It just doesn't happen.