Smoking in the Movies
The Smoke Free Movies Campaign
The American Legacy Foundation® is committed to reducing youth exposure to smoking in movies. Parents, adults and researchers all agree that movie smoking can influence kids to smoke. Both the President’s Cancer Panel and the Institute of Medicine recommend that meaningful efforts be made to eliminate or counter exposure to the billions of smoking impressions that Hollywood leaves with young moviegoers.
- More than one-third of youth smoking can be traced to exposure to smoking in films, according to a 2005 study in the journal Pediatrics.
- The landmark 1998 Master Settlement Agreement recognized the enormous impact film has on our culture and banned paid tobacco product placement in movies.
- Yet smoking in youth-rated movies continues to influence nearly 200,000 youth smokers each year.
We have joined a host of prominent health and parents organizations around the country – including the World Health Organization, American Medical Association and AMA Alliance, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Heart Association, American Lung Association and more – to urge the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and major movie studios to adopt four evidence-based policies that would help counter the impact of smoking in movies on youth starting to smoke.
The Smoke Free Movies Policy Solutions:
- Include strong and effective anti-smoking ads before all movies in which tobacco is depicted.
- Certify that nothing of value was received in exchange for the depiction of tobacco in a movie.
- End all brand appearances.
- Rate any new movie with smoking R.
The American Legacy Foundation endorses these policies, developed by the Smoke Free Movies Project at the University of California San Francisco, because such action could save potentially hundreds of thousands of young lives from tobacco addiction and disease if implemented.
Contact:
If your organization is interested in participating in activities related to Smoke Free Movies, please contact Laura Cruzada.