SILVER SMOKE SCREEN ATTORNEYS GENERAL LIGHT A FIRE UNDER MOVIE INDUSTRY TO ADD TOBACCO WARNING TO DVDS.

Byline: Valerie Kuklenski and Brent Hopkins Staff Writers

Thirty-two attorneys general have asked movie studios to add anti- smoking messages to upcoming DVD releases featuring the unhealthy habit in response to new research showing that movie actors' smoking spurs youths to light up.

Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. complained about the issue to Paramount Pictures, Fox Filmed Entertainment, Warner Bros., The Walt Disney Co. and five other studios this week and asked their chief executives to consider including in home versions of their films an anti-smoking public service announcement being produced by the American Legacy Foundation for use beginning in January in movie theaters.

It is the latest step in a campaign aimed at curbing the appeal of smoking in films. In 2003, Curran and others raised concerns with the Motion Picture Association of America about tobacco brand appearances in movies, and Curran last year appeared before the Senate on the matter.

``As we previously have urged the movie industry in our letters, meetings and May 2004 testimony before the United States Senate, eliminating brand appearances and reducing youth exposure to smoking depictions in movies represent a direct and responsible approach to reducing the resulting risk of youth smoking initiation,'' Curran wrote. ``At the same time, there is strong evidence that airing anti-smoking messages lessens the effect on youth of viewing depictions of smoking in movies.''

He referred to a Dartmouth Medical School study, funded by the National Cancer Institute and released Nov. 7, that suggested that more than one- third of adolescents who smoke were inspired by movie smoking. The nationwide study, which factored out other influences such as smoking parents and socioeconomic demographics, bore out the results of two earlier regional studies.

The study, which questioned more than 6,500 adolescents between the ages of 10 and 14, found that smoking cropped up in the majority of the 594 films it surveyed, with 74 percent depicting lighting up in some form. Kids who watched these movies most heavily were three times more likely to try smoking than their peers who watched films with less smoking exposure.

``Let's imagine a kid who's a little insecure about their masculinity,'' said Dr. James Sargent, a pediatrician and Dartmouth Medical School professor who served as lead author on the study. ``He sees Clint Eastwood, a very masculine actor, light up a cigarillo and that becomes part of his notion of what he wants to be.

``That changes him from being someone who's against smoking, like most little kids before the third grade, to someone who sees it as something that might get them a little more toughness and masculinity. So they try it.''

Stanton Glantz, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, who heads the Smoke Free Movies project, hailed the attorneys general letter. His group estimates that 380,000 children take up smoking each year as a result of on-camera tobacco use, which Glantz says will eventually translate into 120,000 deaths annually.

The group, which has done work with Sargent in the past, has a long- running campaign agitating for more stringent guidelines limiting smoking in movies, such as a mandatory R rating and an anti-smoking ad prior to screenings, similar to what the attorneys general seek with home entertainment.

``That tends to neutralize the pro-tobacco message,'' Glantz said. ``We're saying if they want to keep it in, they should at least warn the audience.''

The studios that received letters from the attorneys general referred phone calls to their trade group, the Motion Picture Association of America. Kory Bernards, vice president of communications for the Encino-based MPAA, said the studios already disclose any depictions of children smoking in their ratings descriptions.

``We all recognize that smoking is a serious health problem,'' Bernards said. ``One of the first things (Chairman) Dan Glickman did when he started was to meet with attorneys general and the Directors Guild of America to talk about this issue and others.''

She said the MPAA's member companies would make individual decisions on whether to include the PSAs, but stressed that the studios believe the descriptors of why a film receives a particular rating provide parents with ample information on smoking content.

Curran's letter was signed by his counterparts in Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, the Northern Mariana Islands, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

Valerie Kuklenski, [phone]

valerie.kuklenski(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

photo

Photo:

(color) no caption (DVD, smoking)