World Health Organization (WHO) has called on countries to rate movies that potray tobacco so as to prevent children and adolescents from being encourages smoking cigarettes or using any form of tobacco.
“With ever tighter restrictions on tobacco advertising, film remains one of the last channels exposing millions of adolescents to smoking imagery without restrictions,” says Dr Douglas Bettcher, WHO’s Director for the Department of Prevention of Non-communicable Diseases.
WHO believes that films can be a strong form of promotion of tobacco products. According to a study conducted in the United States of America 37 percent of new adolescent smokers have been influenced by on screen smoking. In 2014, smoking was found in 44% of all Hollywood films, and 36% of films rated for young people. Almost two thirds (59%) of top-grossing films featured tobacco imagery between 2002 and 2014.
Surveys have shown that tobacco imagery was found in top-grossing films produced in six European countries and two Latin American countries (Argentina and Mexico). Nine in 10 movies from Iceland and Argentina contain smoking, including films rated for young people, the report states.
The report by WHO recommends that film show an anti-smoking advertisements containing tobacco imagery in all distribution channels (cinemas, televisions, online, etc) at the beginning of the movie. In addition, no cigarette brand should be shown in the movie and the producers to tell if they have been paid to advertise a brand of cigarettes in the movie.
WHO is impressed that China has ordered that ‘excessive’ smoking scenes not be shown in films
