Smoking prevalent in movies

LOS ANGELES -- An anti-smoking group said Saturday that youngsters are seeing too much smoking when they watch commercials for many popular movies.\nTobacco use was found in 14 percent of the movie trailers that appeared on television and were studied by the American Legacy Foundation. They included trailers for some of the biggest hits of 2001, including the Oscar-winning "A Beautiful Mind," the group said.\nThe foundation estimated that during the year-long period studied, more than 90 percent of all U.S. youngsters 12 to 17 years old had seen at least one trailer with smoking.\nFoundation President and CEO Cheryl Healton stopped short of claiming that tobacco producers were paying to have their products placed in the movies. That practice is banned under a 1998 lawsuit settlement between big tobacco producers and 46 states.\nThe agreement also forbids the participating manufacturers from directly or indirectly targeting youth in advertising, marketing and promotion of tobacco products.\nTobacco giant Philip Morris, maker of Marlboro, said it complies fully with "the letter and the spirit" of the agreement.\n"Our policy ... since the early 1990s is that we do not provide product or permission to anyone who is seeking to use our brand names in films," company spokesman Brendan McCormick said from New York.\nThe foundation said it examined all 216 movies that were advertised on TV between August 2001 and July 2002. It found that 67 percent depicted smoking, including more than a third of those rated PG. That rose to 85 percent in R-rated films.\nHealton and other critics said Hollywood continues to portray smoking as glamorous. Movies that show branded cigarettes, especially, "tend to put them in the hands of movie stars," she said.\nWhile in real life the number of smokers in the U.S. has plummeted, the use of tobacco in movies has risen sharply even since 1990, and the on-screen appearance of brand names also has increased, said Stanton Glantz, a University of California, San Francisco, professor and founder of the Smoke Free Movies campaign.\nExamples include the Winston brand in "A Beautiful Mind," which won the Oscar for best picture, he said.\nA call seeking comment from Ron Howard, who directed "A Beautiful Mind," was not immediately returned Saturday.\nAt the "World No Tobacco Day" news conference Saturday, public health and anti-smoking groups called on the industry to stop showing tobacco brands on screen and anti-tobacco ads before films with any tobacco presence.\nThey also would like any movie depicting any scene with smoking to earn an R rating from the Motion Picture Association of America to keep youngsters away.