Screen Out! Guide Helps Parents Address Smoking in Movies

Screen Out! Guide Helps Parents Address Smoking in Movies

New Parents' Guide Addresses Link between Smoking in Movies
and Youth Starting to Smoke

WHAT: The Smoke Free Movies Action Network, a national grassroots
coalition dedicated to protecting children's health by addressing
movie smoking, is issuing a new tool for parents to address the
effects of movie smoking on youth starting to smoke. Screen Out! A
Parent's Guide to Smoking, Movies and Children's Health, is a
guide designed to mobilize parents in a national grassroots
campaign aimed at the movie industry about the depiction of
smoking in films and will be presented during a press conference
at the 13th World Conference on Tobacco or Health (WCTOH) in
Washington, D.C. The campaign is endorsed by the American Legacy
Foundation(R), American Heart Association, American Medical
Association and the State of New York Department of Health.

WHO: Dr. Stan Glantz, University of California-San Francisco
Dr. Stephen Havas, American Medical Association
Dr. Cheryl Healton, American Legacy Foundation

WHEN & 10:15 a.m., Friday (7/14)
WHERE: Washington Convention Center
Room 141
801 Mount Vernon Place, NW, Washington, D.C. 20001
Metro: Mount Vernon Square/Convention Center (Yellow or Green)

WHY: Research shows that movies rated for kids still often contain
smoking, thus exposing children to a potential life of tobacco
addiction and disease. The current movie rating system does not
address smoking, and does not acknowledge the impact it has on
young Americans starting to smoke. Because the movie rating system
is designed for parents, the above mentioned organizations have
joined together to provide parents with information to make
decisions about how smoking in the movies can affect their
children's health. These organizations have also provided tools
which parents can use in taking action.

Smoke Free Movies aims to sharply reduce the U.S. film industry's usefulness to Big Tobacco's domestic and global marketing -- a leading cause of disability and premature death. Smoke Free Movies is a project of Stanton A. Glantz, Ph.D., professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Professor Glantz is co-author of The Cigarette Papers and Tobacco War and director of the UCSF Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education. This project is supported by grants from the American Legacy Foundation(R), the Arimathea Fund of the Tides Foundation, and other donors. Earlier support came from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund.

CONTACT: Julia Cartwright of the American Legacy Foundation, +1-202-454-5555

PRNewswire -- July 12

Source: American Legacy Foundation

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