According to the WHO’s most recent edition of its report Smoke-free Moves: From Evidence to Action, movies showing the use of tobacco products have enticed millions of young people worldwide to start smoking. This global report reaffirms research done by the Ontario Tobacco Research Unit concluding that in Ontario alone, at least 185,000 children and teens will be recruited to smoking cigarettes from exposure to onscreen smoking. In Ontario, between 2004 and 2013, 57% of top grossing movies featured onscreen smoking, and 86% of movies with tobacco were youth-rated.  

“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. Bettcher says taking concrete steps, including rating films with tobacco scenes and displaying tobacco warnings before films with tobacco, can stop children around the world from being introduced to tobacco products and subsequent tobacco-related addiction, disability and death.

For full details on the issue and to advocate for change: www.smokefreemovies.ca

To check out the smoking status of a movie visit the 
Thumbs Up! Thumbs Down! database or Common Sense Media.

“Tobacco is a communicable disease. It’s communicated through advertising, marketing and making smoking appear admirable and glamorous… . It is hard, if not impossible, to find any parallel in history where people have gotten away with such a systematic perpetuation of death and destruction without question or punishment.”(Gro Harlem Brundtland, WHO, 2000)

http://www.nsra-adnf.ca/cms/file/files/pdf/TID_Booklet.pdf

The Tobacco Industry uses marketing and manipulative tactics to appeal to youth. They are constantly coming up with new products and new ways to make tobacco products look appealing so that they can hook more and more people.