Hollywood needs to stop promoting smoking worldwide

Papers p 1394

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, as a paper in this week's issue of Tobacco Control shows,1 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. 2 3 And it has been a two way street. For example, 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.”4 The public has viewed smoking in films with increasing alarm, particularly after it became known that the tobacco industry was making large surreptitious payments to get scenes with smoking in …