Tobacco.org

• Study Says State Film Subsidies Underwrite Tobacco-Friendly Movies 

A new report takes aim at state movie production subsidies for supporting films that depict smoking. Health researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, estimate that 60 percent of the $1.4 billion that states offered in 2008 to attract Hollywood filming went to movies with tobacco imagery.

The researchers tabulated that states gave about $500 million to “youth-rated” movies (PG and PG-13) and about $330 million R-rated movies. Combined, that is more than the 41 states that offer subsidies spend on antitobacco health programs, according to Stanton Glantz, an author of the report and a U.C.S.F. professor of medicine.

“These film subsidies undermine their own antitobacco programs,” Mr. Glantz said. The full report, released Tuesday and funded by the American Legacy Foundation, is available here.

Jump to full article »