January 25, 2016
The new CDC Tips campaign that just launched features a story from Kristy. A woman who tried to quit with ecigs and remained a dual user.
Kristy tried using electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) as a way to cut back on cigarette smoking, but she continued to smoke regular cigarettes. Her cough didn’t get better, and eventually, Kristy stopped using e-cigarettes and went back to smoking only regular cigarettes. A few months later, her right lung collapsed, which can be life threatening. She was rushed to the hospital. Kristy spent 2 weeks there on powerful pain medicine as doctors inserted chest tubes and performed surgery to repair her collapsed lung. Tests also showed that Kristy had the beginning stages of emphysema and COPD, lung diseases that make it harder and harder to breathe and have no cure. COPD stands for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Read her whole story and see the ad here.
January 19, 2016
• Of the twenty English-language, live-action, non-documentary films nominated in any Oscar category this year, thirteen (65%) included smoking: half of those rated PG-13 and 71 percent of those rated R.
• While 65 percent of Oscar-nominated films include smoking, only 35 percent of the nominated actors smoked.
• Five of the seven smoking roles (71%) in 2015 were based on actual historical people. Last year, only one of the five smoking roles was based on an actual person (American Sniper, R, Time Warner).
• Seven of the thirteen films with smoking had a biographical element, but in most of these films most of the smokers were invented minor characters or uncredited extras.
Conclusion
The growing number of films with biographical elements — but with invented characters smoking — is a trend to watch.
January 19, 2016
This ad, commenting on the fact that smoking in movies is back down to historic lows, is running in Variety and Hollywood Reporter this week.
It also makes the point that smoking is shifting to the Independents, which is another reason that individual studio policies are not enough and that we need the R rating.
See the ad larger and access lots of useful information at http://smokefreemovies.ucsf.edu/sfm-ads/ad-109
January 16, 2016
On January 11, 2016 Gerhard Gmel and colleagues published a very well done longitudinal study of the relationship between e-cigarette and cigarette use in 5128 Swiss male 20 year olds.
They recruited subjects when they were registering for military service (required of all 20 year old males in Switzerland) and followed them up a year later.
The authors measured smoking behavior at the beginning and the end and e-cig use at the end.
(Yes, I know our friends in England will criticize only measuring e-cigarette use at the end. The authors of the paper discuss this issue and we showed that when e-cig use is measured does not affect the results.)
They found:
January 15, 2016
1 of 3 PG-13 movies are smokefree
The Martian, Simon Kinberg, Ridley Scott, Michael Schaefer and Mark Huffam (smokefree)
Bridge of Spies, Steven Spielberg, Marc Platt and Kristie Macosko Krieger (smoking)
Brooklyn, Finola Dwyer and Amanda Posey (smoking)
2 of 5 R movies are smokefree
Mad Max: Fury Road, Doug Mitchell and George Miller (smokefree)
Room, Ed Guiney (Smokefree)
The Big Short, Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner (smoking)
The Revenant, Arnon Milchan, Steve Golin, Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Mary Parent and Keith Redmon (smoking)
Spotlight, Michael Sugar, Steve Golin, Nicole Rocklin and Blye Pagon Faust (smoking)
Data from Thumbs Up! Thumbs Down!, a project of Breathe California of Sacramento-Emigrant Trails.
Search the whole movie database here.