|
Dear
Dr. Bill,
In your 2/11/02 column you quoted a bulletin from the
University of Maryland's Center for Substance Abuse Research
(CESAR) which reported that "youths who see tobacco use
in movies are more likely to report trying smoking."
You said that it was first time that you had seen any research
on the subject; and then asked, "any influence by the
tobacco industry here, perchance?" On the very next day,
The New York Times reported that the tobacco companies were
(are?) very much a part of the picture. ("In the 80's:
Lights! Camera! Cigarettes!" By Rick Lyman (NYT) News,
March 12, 2002). It was a timely column.
AAM-Paramus
|
|
Dear
AAM,
You bet the tobacco industry is "very much a part
of the picture".....yours is an apt but deadly pun....those
industry killer bees are always searching for their 'honey'....our
kids. Get them hooked on their deadly product...early...while
very young when,... as I noted on 2/11, "the influence
from films is as strong as other kinds of social influence,
such as smoking by a parent or sibling." I'm a weekend
NY Times subscriber, so I didn't see the article, but you
sent me searching. Amonst others, I found this editorial from
the British Medical Journal (BMJ 2001;323:1378-1379) on the
website,Tobacco Control Online, which I'll quote in part:
"The tobacco industry recruits and retains smokers by
associating its products with excitement, sex, wealth, rebellion,
and independence. Films are a powerful way to make this connection
and....they succeed.
"The
tobacco industry has cultivated its relationship with Hollywood
using everything from large payments to film studios to distributing
free cigarettes to the people who make films. And it has been
a two way street. For example, (Get this!) in 1972, the president
of a production company wrote to RJ Reynolds Tobacco reporting
that all the characters in a suspense thriller his company
was producing smoked, and added, 'Movies are better than any
commercial that has been run on television or any magazine,
because the audience is totally unaware of any sponsor involvement.'"
The editorial adds, "The public has viewed smoking in
films with increasing alarm (Well, some of them), particularly
after it became known that the tobacco industry was making
large surreptitious payments to get scenes with smoking in
films. The United States Congress held hearings in 1989. Subsequently,
the cigarette companies adopted a voluntary code that purportedly
ended product placement in films. Despite this voluntary code,
the amount of smoking shown in American films increased dramatically
from 1991 and now exceeds that present in 1960." .....How
come?
Well,
let's see..... I also found on www.jointogether,org a March
12th Associated Press report of a study which examined the
ties between Hollywood and cigarette makers by reviewing more
than 1,500 previously secret internal tobacco-industry documents,
made public through the 1998 tobacco settlement...it found
that tobacco companies aggressively pursued product placement
in films in the 1980s and "undertook an extensive campaign
to hook Hollywood on tobacco by providing free cigarettes
to actors." The study's co-author, Curtis Mekemson, a
health and environmental consultant who specializes in tobacco
content in movies, commented that "it confirms what we
have suspected for quite some time: that when stars light
up in films, that can have a powerful influence on people."
The tobacco
industry said it has stopped the practice of pursuing tobacco
use in films, but the study shows that "smoking in movies
increased throughout the 1990s. A previous Dartmouth Medical
School study found that tobacco use was featured in 85 percent
of the 25 highest-grossing movies released each year from
1988 through 1997.
More on
this next week.....
|
