WHO calls for strict guidelines to stop children being tempted to light up and smoke.

 

Films showing smoking 'should be given adult rating': WHO calls for strict guidelines to stop children being tempted to light up

Films which show smoking should be given an adult rating to protect children from the 'last frontier' of tobacco advertising, world health chiefs have urged.The World Health Organisation has warned cigarette companies are increasingly turning to Hollywood as countries crack down on other forms of tobacco advertising and sponsorship.

 

The WHO cites statistics claiming that 44 per cent of all Hollywood films, and 36 per cent of films rated for young people in 2014 contained smoking.  It warned movies showing the use of tobacco products have enticed millions of young people worldwide to take up the habit.  

Dr Armando Peruga, programme manager of WHO's tobacco-free initiative, said: 'We saw for a while a decrease in the tobacco incidences in films and other entertainment productions. 

 

'But based on what we monitored, we saw, in 2013-14, a turning point, a picking up of the number of tobacco scenes. The tobacco industry has been looking at alternatives to promote their products and films is the last frontier for tobacco companies.'

The report, Smoke-free Movies, also calls for: 

 

an end to the display of tobacco brands in films .It also calls for strong anti smoking advertisement,cinemas, on television and online.
certifying in movie credits that film producers receive nothing of value from anyone in exchange for using or displaying tobacco products in a film.

 

The report gave the 2014 example of Transformers: Age of Extinction, which features a cigar-smoking robot.

It calculated the Hollywood blockbuster had a total of 2.6bn 'impressions' of tobacco use - which is the number of incidents multiplied by its paid cinema admissions - in China alone.

Dr Peruga said requests not to show brands and to include a statement in the credits saying film producers were not paid for tobacco products appearing - have been largely ignored in the US so far.

According to WHO figures, tobacco kills up to half of its users with an estimated six million people each year.

 

Often, even if actors are smokers in real life, it is unlikely they are smoking harmful cigarettes during numerous takes while filming.

The tobacco industry has been looking at alternatives to promote their products and films is the last frontier for tobacco companies

Dr Armando Peruga, WHO

 

Many use herbal cigarettes, which have no tobacco or nicotine, and claim to be made with 'non-addictive herbs and plant materials.' 

However, studies in the US have found nearly four out of every 10 adolescents who take up smoking do so because they have seen film and TV stars doing it.

 

The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention estimated in 2014 that six million young people would start smoking because of it. Many films produced outside of the US also contain smoking scenes, the report states.

 

Surveys have shown that tobacco imagery was found in top-grossing films produced in six European countries - Germany, Iceland, Italy, Poland, the Netherlands and the UK -  contained smoking in films rated for young people.

Nine in 10 movies from Iceland and Argentina contained smoking, including films rated for young people, WHO found.

 

'With ever tighter restrictions on tobacco advertising, film remains one of the last channels exposing millions of adolescents to smoking imagery without restrictions,' said Dr Douglas Bettcher, director for the department of prevention of noncommunicable diseases at WHO

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