Anti-smoking ads in DVDs, videos urged

Attorney General Pamela Brown disclosed yesterday that she has asked major motion picture studios in Hollywood to insert anti-smoking public service announcements in all DVDs, videos and newer movie home-viewing formats.

Brown, along with 32 other state AGs, asked filmmakers for the insertion of anti-smoking PSAs following the recent publication of a study, which found that adolescents with the greatest exposure to depictions of smoking in movies were almost three times more likely to try smoking than their peers in the least exposed group.

The National Cancer Institute-funded study, conducted by the Dartmouth Medical School, appeared in the medical journal Pediatrics. Brown said the study was the first to determine the effects of viewing smoking in movies on a nationally representative sample of youth.

“For the past two years, we have been meeting and talking with the movie studios and other members of the movie industry, providing them first-hand access to the scientists who have studied the impact of movie smoking on youth, and seeking their cooperation in eliminating tobacco brand appearances and reducing youth exposure to smoking depictions in movies,” Brown said in a media release.

“Now, we have the availability of an anti-smoking PSA created by the experts, and the compelling data from the latest smoking in movies study. Given the increasing number of movies on DVDs, videos and now UMDs [universal media discs], the timing is right to ask each of the studios to take this specific action to help protect kids from the effects of viewing smoking in the movies they watch at home,” she added.

The American Legacy Foundation produced the PSAs through a fund from the 1998 Tobacco Master settlement Agreement. The foundation, in conjunction with the Hollywood’s Entertainment Industry Foundation and the Will Rogers Institute, will run the PSAs in theaters across the United States.

Brown said film studios could help disseminate the PSAs to more young people by attaching them to DVDs and other home viewing formats.

Along with Brown, the attorneys general of the following states co-signed the letter to Hollywood film studios: Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Iowa, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, West Virginia, and Wyoming.