April 29, 2016
Disney has announced that Emma Stone will star as a young Cruella de Vil, confirming leaks first reported by The Hollywood Reporter in January.
In 'Cruella', Stone will recap the early years of the puppy-napping fashionista with two-tone hair, a sleek Bugatti and the longest cigarette holder in Mayfair.
The character debuted in the animated '101 Dalmatians' (1961) and was revived in live-action by Glenn Close in 1996.
Cruella de Vil has been cited by a handful of pro-tobacco bloggers in the UK who claim that adult-rating tobacco imagery would deprive future generations of children of the chance to see, well, '101 Dalmatians'. (And because it is a new production, it would get an R rating.)
As of January 1, 2016, The Disney Company promised to keep all future films released under its Disney, Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm labels smokefree.
The new '101 Dalmations' movie will be a test of how serious Disney is about the new policy.
April 24, 2016
The latest data on the film industry and tobacco finds that so-called independent film companies have more than tripled their share of youth-rated films with smoking: from 12 percent in 2005 to 39 percent in 2015.
As the chart below shows, the major studios, who own and are represented by the MPAA, reduced their kid-rated movies with smoking by 64 percent between 2005 and 2010, after which time the number of smoking films has stayed about constant.
Meanwhile, the non-MPAA independents actually released more youth-rated films with smoking, doubling the number between 2011 and 2015. The independents released a total of 53 youth-rated films with smoking in those years, compared to 106 from all of the major studios.
April 21, 2016
On April 15, 2016 the CDC published "Tobacco Use Among Middle and High School Students -- United States, 2011-2015" in MMWR.
The data (see graph for high school students) show continued growth in e-cigarette use with no drop in cigarette smoking. The data for middle school students show continued growth in e-cigarettes with a small decline in cigarettes.
What this means is that e-cigarettes are continuing to expand the nicotine market among kids. The fact that conventional cigarettes did not drop in high school students and only declined slightly among middle school students is precisely what one would expect if some of the kids initiating nicotine use with e-cigarettes were adding cigarettes, which is what the longitudinal data show (nonsmoking kids who start with e-cigarettes about three times more likely to be smoking cigarettes a year later).
April 20, 2016
My colleagues at UCSF and I have submitted the following public comment to the FDA. The regulations.gov tracking number is 1k0-8p6f-vtz.
FDA should regulate the manufacturing and marketing of hookah tobacco to prevent misperceptions of harm and widespread use among youth and young adults
Docket FDA-2016-N-0173
UCSF Tobacco Center for Regulatory Science
Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education
University of California, San Francisco*
INTRODUCTION
April 18, 2016
In results released 1 April 2016, Canadian tobacco control groups found 79 percent of Ontario adults wanted to end smoking in movies rated 14A or lower (similar to US PG-13 and lower in the US). Seventy-seven percent opposed the display of tobacco brand logos in films. Two out of three adults backed an 18A rating for future films with tobacco.
Support for smokefree movie initiatives has grown since 2011, when the Paris-based public opinion pollster Ipsos last surveyed Ontario adults on the same questions (see chart).
Half of those polled agree that tobacco companies have paid for tobacco product placement in movies, compared to 11 percent who disagree. Twice as many agree than disagree that kids who see lots of smoking in movies are more likely to start smoking. Twice as many also agree that the tobacco industry has paid actors to smoke on screen.