Letters of support

Submit your endorsement today!

Contact YATI at 1-877-TLA-YATI (852-9284) or at yati@on.lung.ca

Join the following organizations/groups who have already endorsed the campaign and the following “Endorsement of Action on Smoking in Movies”:

Tobacco use is the number one cause of preventable disease and death in Ontario. Leaders in public health units, local boards of health, non-governmental organizations and health charities in Ontario have a history of speaking out in favour of actions to reduce the harmful impact of tobacco use.

Whereas tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable death and disability in Canada, accounting for the deaths of approximately 13,000 people in Ontario alone each year; 1

Whereas the tobacco industry has a long, well-documented history of promoting tobacco use and particular brands on-screen, while obscuring its true purpose in doing so; 2

Whereas adolescents watch more films than any other age group: movie-going is a universal experience and tobacco imagery in films is currently unavoidable; 3

Whereas nearly 90 percent of tobacco impressions delivered to theatre audiences in Canada in 2009 were delivered by large US media conglomerates; 3

Whereas Canadian movie rating systems classify more movies as 14A or PG that are rated R in the US resulting in 60% more tobacco imagery exposure by youth-rated films;3

Whereas exposure to smoking in movies is estimated to be responsible for 44% of youth uptake;4

Whereas an estimated 130,000 Canadian smokers aged 15-19 have been recruited to smoke by exposure to on-screen smoking, and 43,000 of them will eventually die of tobacco-caused diseases;3

Whereas the World Health Organization has advised all nations that have ratified the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, a global treaty obligating Parties including Canada to prevent youth smoking and end tobacco promotion through all channels, to five an adult rating to all new films that depict smoking, whether domestically produced or imported; 5

 

Therefore be it resolved that the organizations listed below endorse the following policies to reduce the exposure of youth to smoking in movies:

(1) Rate new movies with smoking "18A" in Ontario, with the sole exceptions being when the tobacco presentation clearly and unambiguously reflects the dangers and consequences of tobacco use or is necessary to represent smoking of a real historical figure.

(2) Require producers to certify on-screen that no one involved in the production of the movie received anything of value in consideration for using or displaying tobacco.

(3) Require strong anti-smoking ads to be shown before any movie with tobacco use at the distributor's expense, regardless of rating and distribution channel.

(4) Require producers to stop identifying tobacco brands.

(5) Require that films with tobacco imagery assigned a G, PG, or 14A rating be ineligible for federal and provincial film subsidies.

 

  • Algoma Public Health
  • Association of Local Public Health Agencies 
  • Brant County Health Unit
  • Canadian Cancer Society – Ontario Division 
  • Chatham-Kent Public Health Unit
  • Community Health Nurses' Initiatives Group (CHNIG), an interest group of the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario (RNAO)
  • City of Hamilton Public Health Services
  • Dr. C. Greensmith, Medical Officer of Health, County of Lambton
  • Eastern Ontario Health Unit
  •  Elgin St. Thomas Public Health
  • Grey Bruce Public Health Unit 
  •  Haldimand Norfolk Health Unit
  • Halton Council on Smoking or Health
  • Heart & Stroke Foundation Ontario
  •  Huron County Health Unit
  • Kingston, Frontenac and Lennox & Addington Public Health
  •  Leave The Pack Behind
  • Middlesex-London Board of Health
  • Niagara Region Health Unit
  • Non-Smoker's Rights Foundation
  •  North Bay Parry Sound District Health Unit
  • Ontario Campaign for Action on Tobacco
  • Ontario Lung Association
  • Ontario Physical and Health Education Association 
  • OPHA Children’s Marketing Workgroup
  • Ottawa Public Health
  • Oxford County Public Health
  •  Parkdale Community Information Centre
  • Perth District Health Unit
  • Peterborough County-City Health Unit
  • Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada
  •  Region of Waterloo Public Health Unit
  • Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit
  •  Sudbury & District Health Unit
  •  The Regional Municipality of Halton
  •  The Registered Nurses Association of Ontario
  •  Timiskaming Public Health Unit
  •  Toronto Public Health
  • Township of Plummer Additional
  • Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health
  • Windsor-Essex County Health Unit

 References

1http://www.mhp.gov.on.ca/en/smoke-free/default.asp Accessed August 17 2010 

2C Mekemson and SA Glantz, "How the tobacco industry built its relationship with Hollywood," Tobacco Control 2002; 11: i81-i91. KL Lum, JR Polansky,RK Jackler, et al.. Tobacco Control 2008; 17:  313-323.

3Polansky, J.. Tobacco Vector: How American movies, Canadian film subsidies and provincial rating practices will kill 43,000 Canadian teen alive today-and what Canadian government scan do about it. Physicians for Smoke-Free Canada. July 2010. Accessed August 2010

4C Millett and SA Glantz, "Assigning an '18' rating to movies with tobacco imagery is essential to reduce youth smoking (editorial)," Thorax 2010; 65(5): 377-78

5World Health Organization, Smoke·free movies: From evidence to action, 2009. Accessed April 2010 http://www.who.int/tobacco/smoke_free_movies/en/

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