Smoking: an R-rated offense

The Times deserves credit for recognizing in its Aug. 23 editorial “Smoking in the movies” the tremendous impact smoking in movies has on our nation’s youth. We disagree with its assertion, however, that giving movies that depict smoking an R rating amounts to censorship. The Motion Picture Assn. of America’s rating system is not in place to control the content of films; rather, it allows parents to judge whether they want their children to see specific content such as drug use, violence or other risky behaviors. Because smoking kills more than 400,000 Americans each year and there is evidence (PDF) that more than 67% of adults agree that movies with cigarette smoking should be rated R unless they clearly depict the dangers of smoking, an R rating is simply a pragmatic approach to a public health epidemic.

We are joined in this position by the nation’s leaders in public health, including the American Medical Assn. and the AMA Alliance, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Assn. and the World Health Organization, among others. We all contend that the most effective, least intrusive means to cut in half youth exposure to smoking images in movies is to take it out of films made just for young people. Ironically, the glamorization of smoking and its association with “sex appeal” cited in your editorial is in large measure because of the paid product placement in films and on television, which together with other tobacco advertising brought us the tobacco epidemic.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has repeatedly cited movie smoking as one of the possible contributing factors as to why the historic decline in youth smoking has stalled in this country. Both the Institute of Medicine and the President’s Cancer Panel have recognized this and recommended that meaningful efforts be made to eliminate or counter exposure to the countless number of smoking impressions that Hollywood leaves with young movie-goers. A new report from the National Cancer Institute positions the federal government firmly on this topic: Smoking in movies is causally linked to smoking initiation among youth.

How many more studies will it take to show Hollywood that it has the power to make a difference and safeguard young lives from lifelong tobacco addictions? There are other and more original ways to convey independence, anxiety, toughness, weakness, desperation and sex appeal. If Hollywood makes connections on screen between cigarettes and these characteristics, or shows that cigarettes are a normal and effective way to deal with anxiety, weakness and desperation, it is doing much of the legwork for Big Tobacco.

We’re confident that the world’s masters of special effects can both save lives and work their magic at the box office. The nation’s public health community is eager to see “The End” for smoking in youth-rated movies and is confident audiences will applaud loudly when it happens.

Cheryl G. Healton is president and chief executive of the American Legacy Foundation. Bernadette Toomey is president and chief executive of the American Lung Assn. Cass Wheeler is chief executive of the American Heart Assn.