Resources

•             The most important evidence has been provided by a Dartmouth Medical School Study, released last year, which found that teens who viewed movies with smoking are three times more likely to start smoking. Controlling for all other factors, the study found that those teens who saw the most smoking in movies over that period were three times more likely to start smoking than those who saw the least.  

             (For the pdf text of this study, click here) 

   

•            A second study, released in July in the journal Pediatrics, found that 14% of the teens free to watch tobacco-intensive R-rated movies took up smoking, compared to 3% of teens whose parents barred them from viewing R-rated fare.  

              (For the abstract of this study, click here. The full text can be obtained for a fee)

   

•            A third study done by the University of California , San Francisco demonstrated that girls whose favorite stars smoke are more likely to begin smoking. It also documented an 80% increase in the share of estimated tobacco impressions delivered to theater audiences by youth-rated as opposed to R-rated movies between 1999 and 2003.  

             (For the full version of this study, click here)

   

•             A fourth recent study released in July by the Harvard School of Public Health reports a decade of “ratings creep,” finding that content once concentrated in R-rated films, including smoking, is increasingly found in films rated PG and PG-13.

              (For the full version of this study, click here. The article requires free registration)

•             Summaries of two CDC studies examining trends in cigarette smoking among high school children and concluded that a primary factor was smoking as depicted in movies. 

              (For summary of 2002 study, click here. For summary of 2004 study, click here)

•             There are also studies showing that anti-smoking advertisements shown before the screening of movies in theatre work toward decreasing the rate of smoking in high school students and teens. 

             (For the first study, click here. For the second study, click here.)

•            Another interesting site to visit is www.hollywoodunfiltered.org, an effort by the Directors Guild of America to talk to other fellow directors to urge them to be more responsible about smoking. Some excerpts from the site:             

                           I've just always found smoking boring, and an old cheap way to achieve                          some aura for a character that can be achieved in fifty other ways most of                          the time." - David O. Russell, Director of Three Kings

                         "Knowing what we know now about smoking in movies and its impact                         on young people, I have a responsibility as a director to eliminate smoking in                         my films." - Rob Reiner
                         

                         "We all know that smoking kills. That's how I feel about it. I make great effort in                         the films that I do to exclude smoking and drinking and drugs." - Penelope                         Spheeris