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Public Health Leaders and Hollywood Producer Address Powerful Impact of Smoking in the Movies

5/8/2008

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Images portraying smoking on the silver screen play an influential role in determining whether or not young people will start smoking. A Capitol Hill briefing hosted by the American Legacy Foundation^®, a public health foundation dedicated to reducing tobacco use in the U.S., included a Hollywood producer and a prominent researcher from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Research indicates that images of actors and characters smoking in youth-rated movies influence at least 200,000 American youth to start smoking each year. In comparison, 400,000 smokers die each year due to tobacco-related diseases. And in one year alone, Hollywood movies delivered nearly 14 billion smoking images to young people. 

Dr. Jonathan Klein, Director of the American Academy of Pediatrics Julius B. Richmond Center, presented recent research on adolescent brain development. According to Dr. Klein,  “A young person’s first experience with smoking – if pleasurable – is highly predictive of whether they will go on to be come addicted, and that media imagery of smoking as relaxing, social, and satisfying, all pro-social images, create an expectancy – the behavioral pathways – long before most adolescents ever smoke a cigarette.” 

Dr. Klein was joined by Lindsay Doran, who most recently produced films, Stranger Than Fiction and Nanny McPhee. Doran told the audience that given the research, Hollywood had an obligation to depict the deadly addiction in a responsible way. “I think we have to think about teen-agers all over the world. Our rating system stops at our borders, so an "R" rating won't stop kids in other countries from seeing positive images of smoking. Questioning the depiction of smoking in any film that might attract the interest of kids is the first step towards finding a responsible way to address this issue.”

The panel also included Amanda Cannatelli who shared the story of her mother, Pam Laffin. Cannatelli explained that her mother started smoking at age 10. “She thought smoking would make her more popular, like it did for Olivia Newton John’s character in Grease,” Cannatelli said. “But the movie didn’t show what happens after years and years of addiction or disease.” Even though cigarettes gave Laffin asthma and emphysema, her nicotine addiction proved powerful in her attempts to quit. Laffin died eight years ago at age 31, leaving Amanda aged 13 and her sister aged 11 behind.

Thanks to the leadership of Congressman Ed Markey (D-Mass), chair of the Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, who held the most recent Congressional hearing focusing on this issue, other members of Congress, and public health advocates’ efforts, Hollywood studios and media companies have begun to implement policies to address this important public health issue.

A few studios have taken important first steps in adapting policies to reduce the harmful effects of on screen smoking. The Walt Disney Company, the most recognized global family entertainment company has emerged as an industry leader by pledging to no longer include smoking in Disney branded films.

The Weinstein Company and Time Warner have included ads from the American Legacy Foundation’s award-winning truth^® youth smoking prevention campaign in DVDs. Universal Pictures implemented a policy that “presumes that no smoking incidents should appear in any youth-rated film produced by Universal Pictures…” In addition, almost a year ago, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) announced it would consider smoking as a factor when it rates movies.  

While there has been progress, there is still much work to be done. “Legacy and a host of other public health organizations including the World Health Organization, the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics support policies that will limit or eliminate smoking on the screen,” said Cheryl Healton, Dr. PH, President and CEO of the American Legacy Foundation.

The foundation supports the Smoke Free Movies policy solutions, which include:

•  Requiring strong anti-smoking ads to run before films with any tobacco presence regardless of its rating;
• Certification of no pay-offs, by posting a certificate in movie credits declaring that no talent or members of the production team received anything in exchange for using or displaying tobacco;
• Ending the identification of tobacco brands in any movies scenes; and
• The elimination of smoking from G, PG and PG-13 films by rating movies R if they contain smoking, with the exception of when tobacco use and its dangers and consequences are accurately portrayed or when it is necessary to portray a real historical figure.

Background:

Research indicates that smoking in movies contributes to youth smoking initiation, In 2007, both the President’s Cancer Panel and the Institute of Medicine Report recognized this issue and recommended that meaningful efforts be made to eliminate or counter exposure to the billions of smoking impressions that Hollywood leaves with young movie-goers.  In addition, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has stated that high levels of smoking in movies are partially responsible for the fact that there was no decline in daily youth smoking rates between 2005 and 2006.   

Research published last May in the journal Pediatrics found that U.S. films deliver billions of smoking impressions to 10-14 year olds in the U.S. – the ages at which youth are likely to begin experimenting with cigarettes. The study – the first to directly examine youth’s exposure to movie smoking–supports previous findings that youth-rated movies deliver proportionally more smoking to adolescents because they are less likely to see R-rated movies.

A study released in September in the journal Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine shows a direct link between viewing smoking in movies and established adolescent smoking. The study, Exposure to Smoking Depictions in Movies: Its Association with Established Adolescent Smoking, is the first national study to indicate that exposure to smoking in movies predicts whether young people will become established smokers.

The public also believes that movie smoking can influence kids to smoke.  One study found that 70 percent of adults in the U.S. support an R-rating for smoking.

The American Legacy Foundation^® is dedicated to building a world where young people reject tobacco and anyone can quit. Located in Washington, D.C., the foundation develops programs that address the health effects of tobacco use, especially among vulnerable populations disproportionately affected by the toll of tobacco, through grants, technical assistance and training, partnerships, youth activism, and counter-marketing and grassroots marketing campaigns. The foundation’s programs include truth^®, a national youth smoking prevention campaign that has been cited as contributing to significant declines in youth smoking; EX^®, an innovative public health program designed to speak to smokers in their own language and change the way they approach quitting; research initiatives exploring the causes, consequences and approaches to reducing tobacco use; and a nationally-renowned program of outreach to priority populations. The American Legacy Foundation was created as a result of the November 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) reached between attorneys general from 46 states, five U.S. territories and the tobacco industry. Visit http://www.americanlegacy.org/.

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CONTACT: Laura Cruzada, (202) 341-0324, lcruzada@americanlegacy.org