Source: Sarasota (FL) Herald-Tribune
Date: 2010-02-04
Author: CRYSTAL BRUCE

scientific evidence now indicates that movie studios are doing
massive harm. While it\\\'s the tobacco industry whose products kill
439,000 Americans a year, it is exposure to smoking in Hollywood
movies that generates 390,000 new teen smokers a year to replace
them, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. . . .

Take, for example, "Avatar," rated PG-13. Nominated for nine
Academy Awards, it is one of the biggest films this year. It\\\'s a
fantasy that takes place in the year 2154 on a distant moon.

Sigourney Weaver plays a scientist/ecologist who smokes. The
smoking is completely without context or excuse. (How many
scientists would smoke today, let alone in 2154?)

Studies controlling for every other conceivable factor find that
kids 10 to 14 who see the most movies with smoking are three
times as likely to start smoking as kids who see the least. . .

But you don\\\'t need to take the word of independent researchers
publishing in the world\\\'s most respected medical journals. Read
tobacco industry files dating back to 1971. They describe how
tobacco companies set out to systematically boost their products
in major motion pictures. They figured out that they didn\\\'t even
have to flash a particular brand. They beleived that seeing any
kind of smoking in movies would keep it "fashionable," according
to a study by the University of California, San Francisco\\\'s
Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education.

To put tobacco on screen, the companies invested millions in
product placement until at least the early 1990s, when the paper
trail disappears offshore. . . .

The R-rating alone would cut teen exposure to movie smoking in
half and in the decades to come avert as many as 60,000 tobacco
deaths a year -- more U.S. deaths than than are caused by car
crashes and drug use combined.

The six top media CEOs can pick up their phones and make it
happen today. Why not? Nobel prizes have been won for less!