TOKYO (Reuters) -- Japanese anti-smoking activists vowed on Wednesday to fight on after a suit by ill and dying smokers for compensation from the government and Japan Tobacco Inc was rejected by a judge who said nicotine was not addictive.

In a major setback for anti-smoking forces in a nation where even the Health Ministry has cigarette vending machines, the Tokyo District Court on Tuesday rejected demands for 10 billion yen ($91.28 million) in compensation for each plaintiff.

Presiding over the first case of its kind in Japan, Judge Kikuo Asaka said that it had been the choice of each smoker to start using tobacco and stunned the court by denying, in the face of scientific evidence, that nicotine was addictive.

"This judgment has brought shame on Japan," said Bungaku Watanabe, executive director of the Tobacco Problems Information Centre, an anti-smoking group.

Yoshio Isayama, head of the team of lawyers representing the plaintiffs, said they would appeal. "The court appeared either not to have read, or not to understand, all the points we were making," he added. "The judgment is poles away from world knowledge about smoking."