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The tobacco industry knows that motion pictures are one of humanity’s most common entertainment experiences. In a world with two billion urban dwellers (12), cinemas sold eight billion movie tickets in 2006, an all-time high. Of these, 20% were sold in the United States and Canada; however, 80% of admissions and 63% of box office revenues were in other countries (13). Based on figures from exhibitors, distributors and market analysts, the world spends an estimated US$ 100 billion a year on cinema tickets and on legitimate or pirated video copies of films. Roughly 30% is spent on single viewings in theatres, while 70% is spent on videos that can be viewed multiple times. Motion pictures are increasingly viewed outside movie theatres and distributed through other channels. The movie medium is extended by the Internet, TV, DVDs and other video access, reaching widely across cultures and economies. Thus, exposure to film content is vastly underestimated by movie theatre attendance data . . .
In an analysis of more than 1200 US-produced live action films – nearly the entire body of feature films released to theatres both by major studios and by independent producers in 1999- 2006 – tobacco imagery permeated both youth- rated (G/PG/PG-13) and adult-rated (R) movies, with more than three quarters of US-made movies featuring tobacco imagery (14). More specifically, close to 90% of all R-rated movies included smoking, while smoking appeared in three quarters of movies rated PG-13 and was found in more than a third of movies rated G or PG. Altogether, live action movies of all ratings produced in the United States between 1999 and 2006 contained approximately 8400 tobacco incidents.iii
Of these incidents, 68% were in movies rated R; 29% in movies rated PG-13; and 3% in movies rated G or PG. (See Box 1 for an explanation of the rating system.) There was no significant trend in tobacco incidents per film, either up or down, over the period 1999–2006. . . .
Movies, especially those made in the United States, are a major source of viewer identification with celebrities. They can encapsulate dreams, craft hopes and help viewers escape the tedium of everyday life. For the tobacco industry, films can provide an opportunity to convert a deadly consumer product into a cool, glamorous and desirable lifestyle necessity. The Marlboro Man is a powerful salesman, but even he lacks the draw of popular historical and contemporary movie stars from Hollywood, Bollywood and other film production centres. In contrast to traditional advertising, film stars provide indirect but nonetheless powerful information about the “benefits” of smoking.
Experimental and observational studies (27,31) show that cigarette smoking in films can influence young peoples’ beliefs about social norms for smoking, beliefs about the function and consequences of smoking and their personal intention to smoke. The presentation of smoking in films does not reflect reality. In reality, smoking tends to be highest among lower socioeconomic groups. In films, the prevalence of smoking depicted by characters, in particular among the higher-socioeconomic characters frequently portrayed by lead actors, is higher than the prevalence of smoking by comparable people in the general population (40). The real health consequences of smoking are rarely shown (40). Young people, especially, look to those celebrities for reassurance about their choices in fashion and behaviour. As they formulate their lifestyles, the film medium may provide a particularly attractive resource to promote these choices. . . .
When developing policy, both national and global perspectives should be considered. Well designed, evidence-based public health policy will improve population health both nationally and globally. The primary objective of actions to reduce smoking imagery in the movies is:
To substantially and permanently reduce children’s and adolescents’ exposure to tobacco imagery in movies.
Only options that meet this objective would then be evaluated for political feasibility, legality, sustainability and cost. The principles that guide such evaluation include:
• Principle 1: Seek “upstream” solutions
Policy should motivate change in the film industry’s behaviour so as to reduce harmful content at the source (“upstream”) instead of burdening the adolescents in the audience and their parents with taking some sort of protective measures (“downstream”). Films with smoking imagery are causally associated with smoking initiation, and therefore industries that profit from marketing these health risks should be responsible for making them safe. . . .
In May 2007, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) proposed adding descriptors such as “pervasive smoking” or “glamorized smoking” to some ratings, absent a “mitigating context” (69).xiv Such content descriptors fail to convey the harmful effect of the film’s smoking imagery. It is the cumulative exposure to smoking in films – not the amount of smoking in a particular film – that best predicts the effect on adolescents. The recommended approach is to precede any film with tobacco imagery, in any distribution channel, with an effective anti-tobacco spot message. . . .
The Indian experience demonstrates the importance of exposing and neutralizing counter- strategies from the tobacco industry or its surrogates and allies. Successful implementation requires not only judicial intervention but also raising public awareness of the serious harm resulting from onscreen promotion of tobacco. The analytic studies in 2003 and 2004– 5 clearly established that, like the US films dominating screens in other countries, Indian films were depicting more tobacco imagery following implementation of the TCA and thus influencing young people to smoke. National interventions in India, as in the United States, can thus have global impacts in preventing smoking initiation. . . .
Experience shows that whenever tobacco advertising and promotion is restricted in one medium, it migrates to another. Tobacco appearances in films accelerated in the United States while tobacco advertising in other media was being restricted, and in India a similar process occurred after tobacco advertising in other media was prohibited. Because smoking on screen is uniquely vivid and because young people see so many films so often, its promotional effect on smoking initiation is striking. Any country seeking to ban or restrict tobacco advertising and promotion must address the issue of smoking on screen or risk having its public health efforts being severely compromised. The most vulnerable age group (adolescents) must not continue to be exposed to the most powerful promotional channel for smoking imagery available in today’s globalized economy. A comprehensive approach to combating smoking imagery in film is therefore required. . . .
There are a number of levels of intervention whereby smoking in the movies can be restricted. The overall evidence suggests that voluntary and self-regulatory measures have not been successful. Advocacy approaches to obtain stronger labelling requirements (adult ratings) for movies showing smoking imagery as well as anti-smoking messages and assurances that no payoffs are received from the tobacco industry have received wide support recently in both the United States and India. It is clear that restrictions of smoking imagery in movies with wide global distribution will serve a larger, multinational public good. Thus national approaches, and even local approaches, can have wide-ranging positive global effects. Multinational cooperation will also be critical in restricting the global reach of movie-based tobacco imagery.
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Backed by evidence that smoking in movies causes youths to want to light up, the World Health Organization is calling upon countries to enact enforceable policies that would severely restrict such depictions.
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The report recommends that all future movies with scenes of smoking should be given an adult rating, with the possible exception of movies that reflect the dangers of tobacco use or that depict smoking by a historical figure who smoked.
Studies show that smoking continues to permeate movies, including those rated as suitable for youth. The policies recommended would help ensure that movies that are marketed to youth do not include tobacco imagery.
"Voluntary agreements to limit smoking in movies have not and cannot work," the report says. It continues, "Logic and science now support enforceable policies to severely restrict smoking imagery in all film media."
"The WHO recommendations are evidence-based and very much needed," said WHO Assistant Director-General Dr Ala Alwan.
Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) will amend its smoking-control law, banning indoor smoking in all public places, said Lei Chin Ion, director of the SAR's Health Bureau, on Sunday.
Aside from the banning of indoor smoking, new measures such as fixed penalty and image of warning posted on cigarette package will be adopted in the new law, said Lei, on the sideline of local "World No Tobacco Day" campaign.
Myanmar official media Monday warned of the danger of tobacco, calling on the people to actively participate in the control of tobacco consumption, reports Xinhua news agency quoting a local daily.
According to the New Light of Myanmar, Health Minister Dr Kyww Myint stressed the need to organize the citizens to know the danger of tobacco and to join in tobacco consumption control.
He made these remarks in the wake of the warning by the World Health Organization (WHO) that consumption of tobacco and tobacco products killed over five million people yearly and the use of tobacco remained the main factor of causing diseases in the year 2020.
The WHO has designated the motto "Tobacco Health Warning" for this year with a view to enabling the people to understand the danger of tobacco by printing the health warning on packages of tobacco.
According to the paper, Myanmar marked the World No Tobacco Day- 2009 in Nay Pyi Taw ceremonially on Sunday.
This abstinence-only approach to smoking cessation is not a sound public health policy. The Waxman-Kennedy bill places new burdens on the overworked and under-resourced Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which has vital obligations to ensure the safety of our food and drugs.
The FDA is already challenged by tainted food and counterfeit and adulterated drugs . . .
Moving people away from toxic smoking products to smokeless products with up to 99% less health risks is a much healthier approach. For the 96% of smokers who fail to quit smoking every year, harm reduction gives them new options to decrease their health risks. . . .
Americans are familiar with harm-reduction policies such as wearing seatbelts and choosing healthy foods. It is pragmatic to enjoin abstinence with a harm-reduction strategy to improve public health. This week, America has a chance to protect our FDA, oppose ineffective government policies, and use sound science to end our nation's tobacco epidemic by supporting an alternative to FDA regulation, one that calls for innovative, pragmatic, and science-based tobacco harm-reduction strategies.
North Carolina, the nation's largest tobacco producer, just did what was once thought impossible. The state enacted one of the nation's strictest bans on smoking in public places, proving the battle against smoking has come a long way since a handful of California cities and counties passed the nation's first smoke-free laws in 1990.
Today, 27 states heavily restrict smoking in public places. A dozen have tax rates of $2 or more a pack in an effort to price this lethal habit beyond the budgets of many teenagers . . .
Yet for all that has changed, there's still one gaping hole in the nation's efforts to fight an addiction that kills 400,000 Americans a year: The federal government, which regulates everything from breakfast cereal to pet food, doesn't regulate tobacco.
For more than two decades, the tobacco companies and their political allies have beaten back efforts by public health advocates to fill that gap. Now, at last, that appears likely to change. The Senate is poised, as early as this week, to debate a measure that would give the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority to regulate tobacco products. . . .
Despite all the progress against smoking, the public remains vulnerable to an industry that turned deception into a fine art. New research suggests that the risk of getting lung cancer from smoking today in the USA is far higher than the risk to smokers 40 years ago. One possible reason, according to David Burns of the University of California-San Diego, is the design of cigarettes sold in the U.S. Regulation might enable the government to change that design.
Congress has an opportunity to add an important new weapon to attack the nation's No. 1 killer. More than 1,000 children get hooked on cigarettes each day. That's 1,000 new reasons to regulate this deadly product.
Despite all the progress against smoking, the public remains vulnerable to an industry that turned deception into a fine art. USA Today editorial.
YESTERDAY, Uganda joined the rest of the world to mark the World No Tobacco Day. Anti-cigarette activists are vowing to step up the campaign to compel the Government to tighten its grip on smokers who do not care about other people's health.
According to the Uganda Heart Institute, tobacco is the leading cause of preventable cancer deaths in the world, accounting for over 5.2 million deaths annually.
It is projected that the death toll of tobacco-related diseases will rise to 10 million per year, with 70% occurring in developing countries.
Owing to such health risks, in 2004 the Government passed a law barring smoking in public places.
It is considered a violation of non-smokers' rights to life and to a clean and healthy environment.
The then water, lands and environment minister, Kahinda Otafiire, ordered the ban to take immediate effect. . . .
However, despite the heath risks it poses, smoking has continued to thrive even in public places, in total disregard of the law.
And the bodies that should have implemented the legislation have not intervened much.
As a result, mob justice has increased due to increased smoking in public places, as non-smokers struggle to guard themselves from the effects of passive smoking. . . .
Karugaba blames the environmental watchdog, National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) for failing to crack down on smokers.
The Police in Tororo last year arrested one Julius Opondo over allegedly killing a colleague, Desiderio Okecho, by twisting his neck for lighting a cigarette in Wawulere Market.
While bars and restaurants are obvious targets for Nebraska’s smoke-free ban that begins Monday, the East Central Health Department (ECDHD) is finding the much broader ramifications of the new law are largely misunderstood.
“What we have found as we’ve visited with a very wide variety of businesses in our service area, is that most business owners think the smoking ban only affects the bars and restaurants,” said the health department’s Environmental Health Coordinator Roberta Miksch. “The Nebraska Clean Indoor Air Act of 2008 requires indoor workplaces in Nebraska to be smoke-free effective June 1.
“This means the law applies to all public places from beauty shops to industrial sites, photo shops and auto repair shops to bowling alleys,” she said. *
Miksch said the law applies to all breakrooms, hallways, conference rooms and rest rooms.
Gambling and tourism industry lobbyists succeeded Sunday in 11th-hour efforts to get the Nevada Assembly to endorse a partial rollback of a voter-approved ban on smoking in public places.
On a voice vote, the Assembly agreed to a conference committee plan to allow for smoking at some trade conventions. The plan is being grafted onto AB309, which deals with the crime of stalking.
Assembly Judiciary Committee Chairman Bernie Anderson, D-Sparks, said the amendment sought by the lobbyists seemed "touchy relative to germaneness" because AB309 is an anti-stalking bill but was found to be OK by the lawmakers' legal counsel.
The war against smoking has been further intensified with a ban on tobacco companies and retailers from giving gifts when selling cigarettes and other tobacco products.
The measure takes effect immediately with the amendment of the Control of Tobacco Product Regulations by the Health Ministry.
There is also a proposal to expand non-smoking zones to cover hotel lobbies and air-conditioned workplaces.
Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said retailers were not allowed to sell tobacco products with any other items or sell items and give away tobacco products for free.
The regulations were also amended to ban anyone from offering tobacco products or items promoting a tobacco product as gifts, and as prizes in lotteries, raffles, lucky draws, games or competitions.
D'oh! The Simpsons could be encouraging another generation of young people to take up smoking.
One of the most popular television shows in history contains a "large number" of tobacco-related scenes, say researchers who watched 400 episodes of the cartoon for science.
"We recorded 795 instances of smoking or references to smoking," says Dr Guy Eslick, a fellow of the International Union Against Cancer and honorary associate of the University of Sydney's School of Public Health.
"The most notable characters who smoked were Marge Simpson's sisters Patty and Selma, Krusty the Clown and Bart's school teacher Mrs Krabappel."
Dr Eslick assessed the first 18 seasons of the program and found the number of smoking references per season ranged from just over 10 to more than 60.
Smoking was presented in a "positive way" in just two percent of these cases, in a negative way in 35 percent of cases and neutrally in 63 percent. . . .
"Even instances of smoking being reflected in a negative way, particularly among young characters, could have an impact on promoting children to smoke cigarettes," Dr Eslick said.
The study concludes: "Viewing The Simpsons characters smoking may prompt children to consider smoking at an early age".
The research is to be published in the Medical Journal of Australia, and today (Sunday) is World No Tobacco Day.
ZIMBABWEANS puffed up close to 200 million cigarettes during the first quarter of the year, figures release by a leading cigarette maker showed.
Savannah Tobacco sold half a billion cigarette sticks in Zimbabwe and other markets during the first quarter of this year, executive chairman Adam Molai said.
Savannah Tobacco, which produces the Pacific brand of cigarettes, launched the cigarette brands a few years back buoyed by an aggressive product mix targeting both low-end to top-end consumers.
In Zimbabwe the company sold 168 million cigarette sticks in the first quarter while 322 million cigarettes found their way into foreign markets, according to figures released by Savannah.
The government is reviewing the $37 million it spends on stop smoking campaigns, because they don't seem to be working.
In the past year, both the number of new smokers and the level of tobacco consumption have increased.
Twenty one percent of all Kiwis are smoking despite the millions of dollars poured into preventions.
Te Government is directing some of the blame at the cessation services. That means the $37 million the government pumps into the services is now under review.
Smoking in Tehran Municipality’s public places is banned, Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf announced here on Sunday.
In a statement issued on the occasion of the World No-Tobacco Day, Tehran Mayor warned of the increase in rate of habitual smokers aged between 13 and 15 in the country.
World No Tobacco Day is observed around the world every year on May 31, and this years’ theme is "Tobacco Health Warnings" in a bid to make people aware of the health risks of tobacco use and convincing them to quit and finally reduce over 5 million yearly deaths from tobacco related health problems, the mayor said.
On physical, psychological, cultural, and financial devastating effects smoking has on the society, Qalibaf said that tobacco is responsible for 90% of lung cancers and “is the major cause of heart diseases.”