We’ve Seen Enough Smoking in Movies

Reality Check, the youth program of Advancing Tobacco Free Communities, hosted a family movie event in Cobleskill recently. Megan Kemraj advocated to reduce smoking in youth-rated movies. In 2012, the U.S. Surgeon General concluded that smoking imagery in movies causes youth to smoke. The CDC estimates that exposure to on-screen smoking will recruit 6.4 million youth to become smokers.

50% of kid-rated movies nominated for the 2018 Academy Awards program showed smoking. Jillian Johnson shared that assigning an R rating to all movies with smoking could reduce the number of teen smokers by nearly 1 in 5. A majority of U.S. adults (70%) favor giving an R-rating to all movies that contain smoking and any tobacco use. #RateSmokingR