Children demand Tobacco Free Movies on International day of action

Letters subscribed by thousands of children requesting Indian superstars, Amitabh Bachchan, Shahrukh Khan and the “Motion Picture Producers Association (MPAA)” were sent today, as a part of second annual “International Day of Action for Tobacco Free Movies” by Burning Brain Society (BBS) and hundreds of other groups around the world.
Mr. Hemant Goswami, Chairperson of Burning Brain Society said that tobacco is not a tool of artistic expression but a commercial product which produces high degree of chemical addiction. Hemant justified banning of all promotions of tobacco products by drawing a parallel with life saving medicines and mentioned that when even medicines can not be advertised despite being benevolent then what’s wrong in preventing the visibility of tobacco which actually is a poison and kills million. Mr. Goswami pointed out that the tobacco images projected over the mass media spreads myths and scientifically incorrect messages and revealed that 81 percent movies produced in 2005 promoted tobacco as something stylish and glamorous and nearly 62 percent wrongly suggested that tobacco reduced stress.
Ridiculing the producers association, BBS questioned if the creativity of the actors and the fate of the film industry is now only dependent upon a six inch long commercial chemical addictive cigarettes. The petitions demanded that Bollywood & Hollywood stop delivering youth to the tobacco industry by promoting smoking and luring youth worldwide into a lifetime of addiction and disease, and ultimately premature death. Letters to Amitabh & Shahrukh requested the super stars to kick tobacco totally from movies and show the kind of commitment they showed while promoting the pulse polio drive. It also asked them to abstain from using any form of tobacco product in the movies and refuse consent to any movie which shows tobacco use.

According to the WHO sponsored research of the latest (2004 & 2005) Hindi movies done by Burning Brain Society, it has been found that incidents of smoking in movies has alarmingly increased from 72 percent (prior to 2003) to 89 percent. The study also found that Hindi movies are also promoting cigarette brands with around 46 percent of all tobacco containing movies showing tobacco brands in movies despite it being illegal. The other astonishing facts discovered were that in around 33 percent movies there were dialogues specifically promoting tobacco and in over 30 percent movies the dangers of tobacco were mocked at. Not even a single movie showed the negative consequences of the killer tobacco which takes nearly a million lives every year in India.

“The influence of tobacco-related movie images on youth smoking is a major stimulus for adolescent smoking. Most important, there is a ‘dose-response’ the more smoking movies shows on-screen; the more number of kids are likely to start smoking.” That’s why we are calling on the media corporations who own and control Hollywood & Bollywood to stop promoting smoking in movies that are marketed to kids,” said Stanton Glantz PhD of the University of California.

“Scientific data repeatedly have shown that significant number of youth who start smoking do so as a direct result of exposure to smoking in the movies,” said Hemant Goswami, “We are asking the movie industry to stop pushing disease and addiction on youth worldwide.”