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ATTORNEYS GENERAL ASK MOVIE STUDIOS TO HEED HARVARD’S ADVICE TO REMOVE SMOKING FROM MOVIES ACCESSIBLE TO YOUTH

5/3/2007

Statement from Cheryl G. Healton, President and CEO, American Legacy Foundation®

Today, state attorneys general (“AGs”) from around the country have once again approached the heads of Hollywood’s major movie companies to request that they take significant steps to protect youth from exposure to smoking scenes on film, which can recruit up to 390,000 youth a year to smoke.

In letters to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), National Association of Theater Owners (NATO), Screen Actors Guild and a handful of the largest movie companies, the AGs have urged the movie industry to adopt recommendations by the Harvard School of Public Health to remove smoking depictions from films accessible to youth.

In late 2006, the MPAA invited the Harvard School of Public Health to present recommendations on the smoking in movies issue in response to many letters and meetings between the MPAA and AGs. In 2006, the AGs first requested the studios make movies smoke-free and provide information on the deadly toll of tobacco by adding effective anti-smoking public service announcements (PSA) to movies. In addition, over the past few years, public health groups, parents and youth have urged the MPAA to give an R-rating to any movie with smoking. To date, the MPAA and movie industry have had no significant response to the requests nor has it acted on Harvard’s recommendations. Only one independent movie studio, the Weinstein Company, has responded to the AGs by proactively inserting the foundation’s truth^® smoking prevention PSAs at the beginning of select DVDs. 

The American Legacy Foundation applauds the AGs for continuing to champion this important public health issue and holding the movie industry accountable for releasing movies that depict smoking in spite of its knowledge of the consequences.  We have every confidence that the attorneys general will continue to take these progressive and bold moves to counter the depiction of smoking on screen and save hundreds of thousands of young lives from tobacco addiction.

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Contact: Laura Cruzada, 202-341-0324