The Change Mariner

Youth Smoking Attributable to Smoking in Movies?

Honolulu Advertiser -
Students critiqued Oscar-nominated films and popular teen movies for the extent and type of tobacco use, who uses tobacco, specific brands shown, perceived messages of tobacco use, special situations of tobacco use, and anti-tobacco messages displayed.

"Thumbs Down!" was given to movies that they say include and glamorize smoking, while "Thumbs Up!" was given to movies that show no smoking, or have anti-smoking messages. Students shared the information they gathered in their classes and wrote articles in school newspapers
... Last year, two out of three films rated G, PG, and PG-13 showed smoking or tobacco products, organizers reported. In 2000, 89 percent of Hawai'i high school students and 81 percent of Hawai'i middle school students who watch TV or movies reported seeing actors using tobacco most or some of the time.

A study by Dartmouth University medical school suggests that up to 52 percent of the initiation of tobacco use among adolescents is directly attributable to tobacco use in movies. Children who had viewed the most smoking in movies were three times as likely to start smoking as those who had seen the least. Major movie characters tend to light up three times more frequently than do people in America on average, noted the study.

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