Tobacco marketing and depictions of smoking in movies encourage pres Young people to smoke, says a account released Thursday by U.S. National Cancer Institute.
The study also found that cigarettes are one of the most heavily marketed products in the U.S.
Entitled The Role of the Media in Promoting and Reducing Tobacco Use, the report said American cigarette manufacturers spent about $13.5 billion in 2005 on cigarette advertizement and forwarding. That's $37 million a day.
Dr. Ronald Davis, senior scientific editor of the report and past chair of the American Medical Association, told a news conference in Chicago that the report has deuce "definitive" conclusions: that tobacco advertising and promotion ar "causally related" to increased tobacco habit, and that depictions of smoking in movies is "causally related" to youth smoking initiation.
Davis said it is the first political science report to reach those conclusions.
"The media have been used to promote cigarettes and smoke through ill-famed advertising icons, such as the Marlboro Man and Joe Camel, and through and through tobacco images in Hollywood movies," he said.
"The media have also been secondhand to increase smoking cessation and reduce smoking introduction, through paid advertising campaigns and populace service announcements about the dangers of smoking."
Davis aforementioned the report "presents the most current and comprehensive analysis of the scientific evidence on the impact of these forces, and other media exposures, on beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours concerning tobacco plant use."
It analyzed more than 1,000 scientific studies on the role of the media in encouraging and discouraging tobacco use.
The report concludes that bulk media campaigns can trim down smoking, especially when combined with tobacco control strategies.
But the reputation says younker smoking prevention campaigns sponsored by the tobacco industry have generally been inefficient and whitethorn have increased youth smoking.
The report too found:
Much tobacco advertising targets the psychological needs of adolescents, such as popularity, peer acceptance and cocksure self-image. Advertising creates the perception that smoking volition satisfy these needs. Even brief exposure to baccy advertising influences adolescents' attitudes and perceptions about smoke and smokers, and adolescents' intentions to smoke. The depiction of cigarette smoke is permeant in movies, occurring in three-quarters or more of contemporary box office hits. Identifiable cigarette brands appear in about third of movies. When enshrined in law, a comprehensive ban on tobacco advertising and promotional material is an effective policy intervention that prevents baccy companies from shifting marketing expenditures to permitted media.The tobacco plant industry workings hard to impede tobacco control media campaigns, including attempts to prevent or reduce their funding.
The reputation outlines several ways that have been proposed to reduce habit of the media in promoting tobacco use and increase its use in discouraging baccy use. These include:
Impose a comprehensive ban on tobacco advertising and promotion. Adequately fund hoi polloi media campaigns and protect them from tobacco diligence efforts to impede them. Monitor tobacco plant industry activities including public relations and advertising expenditures in a changing media environment. Use research to inform tobacco control insurance and program decisions. Place anti-tobacco advertisements before films to part counter the impact of tobacco portrayals in movies. Increase public awareness of tobacco industry attempts to shut down public health campaigns."This report sends a loud and clear message to policy-makers: We need less tobacco company marketing and more anti-tobacco advertising," aforementioned William Corr, executive director of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, based in Washington, D.C., in a news release.
"It shows why we need strong regulation of tobacco products and their merchandising to foreclose tobacco companies from continuing to target our children. It as well should propel states to fully fund tobacco bar and cessation campaigns that are proved to work. And it should spine governments worldwide to apply the international tobacco control treaty, which calls on governments to ban all tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship and fund effective public education campaigns."
Lindsay Doran, a Hollywood producer and an counsel for keeping smoking out of films seen by youth, said in a news release that the report is significant.
"I'm very glad that the federal government has thrown its weight slow this significant issue," she said.
"Filmmakers ar usually very concerned with issues of social responsibility � that's what many of our best films are around. But they need more than education, specially about the very young age at which to the highest degree people start up to smoke, and more proof that the smoke in our movies and TV shows, if presented irresponsibly, can actually be the same as handing a 12-year-old a cigaret. Today's promulgation should go a long way towards providing that proof."
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