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MORE DVDS TO SHOW CLASSIC truth® AD TO PREVENT YOUTH SMOKING
3/14/2007
List of Weinstein DVDS with truth® Ad Grows
Washington, D.C. – The American Legacy Foundation® announced that “Shut Up & Sing,” the Dixie Chicks documentary (November 2006), and “School for Scoundrels” (September 2006) are the latest DVDs released by the Weinstein Company to include a spot from the foundation’s award-winning youth smoking prevention campaign, truth®. The ads are being placed in DVDs in order to counter the effect that smoking in movies has on youth smoking initiation, according to the foundation.
“Movies likely motivate more than 390,000 kids a year to start smoking,” said Cheryl G. Healton, Dr. P.H., President and CEO of the foundation. “Including an anti-tobacco message before films that show smoking scenes is a simple way to prevent thousands of youth from smoking, and can ultimately reduce the impact of tobacco addiction and premature death that accompany it,” Healton said.
In September 2006, Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran led a group of 40 attorneys general in asking movie studios to use ads from the American Legacy Foundation’s truth® campaign, which has been proven effective in reducing youth smoking, in DVDs, videos and other home-viewing film formats to counter the negative effect that smoking in the movies can have on American youth.
While the request was unanswered by the major motion picture studios, the Weinstein Company was the first studio to proactively offer to embed a classic truth® campaign ad in one of its DVD releases, beginning with one of its most popular – Clerks II, released in December 2006. “We commend the Weinstein Brothers for recognizing movie smoking as a public health risk and hope that we can see this trend with other key decision makers in Hollywood,” Healton added.
Research has shown that teens are strongly influenced by seeing actors they idolize smoke on screen, regardless of the characters they play. To date, the Motion Picture Association of America and the major studios have not responded to pleas from major public health institutions, parents and youth organizations to make movies smoke-free by adding an anti-smoking PSA or giving R-rating to any movie with smoking, despite the fact that one national survey cited 70 percent of U.S. adults in favor of such a rating.
Tobacco remains the number one preventable cause of death in the United States, and 80 percent of adult smokers begin before age 18. truth® ads arm young people with the facts about tobacco addiction, the social and health consequences of smoking and truth about the tobacco industry’s marketing tactics, empowering them to make informed decisions about tobacco use. And we know that truth® works. One study showed that the campaign accelerated the decline in youth smoking between 2000-2002 and that 22 percent of the overall decline in youth smoking during those years can be directly attributed to truth®.
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; EXSM, 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 www.americanlegacy.org.
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Contact: Julia Cartwright, (202) 454-5596, jcartwright@americanlegacy.org