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States Want Hollywood To Add Anti-Smoking Message to DVDs

November 21, 2005

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Attorneys General from around the nation want Hollywood to insert anti-smoking public service announcements in all DVDs, videos and other home viewing formats of movies that depict smoking.

The letter, drafted by New Mexico Attorney General Patricia Madrid and signed by 31 of her counterparts was prompted by the November 7, 2005, publication of the most recent study to find that adolescents with the greatest exposure to depictions of smoking in movies were almost three times more likely to try smoking than their peers in the least exposed group, even after controlling for other known smoking initiation factors.

The study, which appeared in the journal Pediatrics and was conducted by the Dartmouth Medical School with National Cancer Institute funding, is the first to determine the effects of viewing smoking in movies on a nationally representative sample of youth in the United States.

Madrid’s letter also notes that an anti-smoking Public Service Announcement currently is being produced by the American Legacy Foundation, funded with money from the states' 1998 tobacco Master Settlement Agreement (MSA), to run in theaters across this country.

Citing the scientific evidence that airing an anti-smoking PSA lessens the effects on youth from viewing movie smoking, Madrid told the studios that they “can dramatically increase the number of young people who will receive that anti-smoking message by attaching it to DVD, video and other home viewing format movies (such as Universal Media Discs, “UMDs”)” that the studios distribute in which smoking is depicted.

“For the past two years we have been meeting and talking with the movie studios and other members of the movie industry, providing them first hand access to the scientists who have studied the impact of movie smoking on youth, and seeking their cooperation in eliminating tobacco brand appearances and reducing youth exposure to smoking depictions in movies,” Madrid said.

“Now, we have the availability of an anti-smoking PSA created by the experts, and the compelling data from the latest smoking in movies study. Given the increasing number of movies on DVDs, videos and now UMDs, the timing is right to ask each of the studios to take this specific action to help protect kids from the effects of viewing smoking in the movies they watch at home,” she added.

In 2003, 28 Attorneys General sent a letter to the president of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), citing a Dartmouth study finding that a reduction in the prevalence of cigarette smoking in movies could decrease the initiation of smoking in youth drastically.

Attorneys General also held a meeting with members of the Directors Guild of America’s Social Responsibility Task Force, the president of the MPAA, and production executives of the seven major studios in 2003.

They expressed concern that under the tobacco MSA, tobacco companies may not pay to have their products appear in film. However, studies indicated the continued portrayal of glamorized smoking and the appearance of cigarette brand names in film and television.

In 1998, the National Association of Attorneys General passed a resolution asking actors and actresses and the motion picture industry to take steps to reduce use of tobacco by children under 18.

The resolution, citing tobacco-related illnesses and deaths caused by underage smoking, requested that members of the motion picture industry review the use of cigars and cigarettes in film, eliminate or reduce use of tobacco and tobacco products; and consider establishing and maintaining public education programs and other activities specifically designed to discourage children from using tobacco and tobacco products.

In addition to New Mexico, the letter was also signed by Attorneys General from Maryland, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Iowa, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, Northern Mariana Islands, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin and West Virginia.

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