Eighty percent of U.S. movies released in the past five years have included smoking. The World Health Organization and U.S. health authorities agree that exposure to smoking in movies influences adolescents powerfully. Recent large-scale research studies indicate that this exposure recruits more than half of all new young smokers in the United States — 390,000 adolescents annually — of whom about one-third will eventually die from tobacco-related disease.

On a global scale, Hollywood's contribution to tobacco addiction threatens a death toll surpassing other major causes combined. Tobacco is the #2 killer worldwide. Both the U.S. film industry and the U.S. tobacco industry are aggressively expanding into the emerging markets of Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe. Global tobacco deaths, now five million each year, will double in two decades, with most of the disability and mortality in poorer nations. Between now and 2050, total deaths from tobacco-related cancer and from cardiovascular and lung diseases will reach 450 million.

The U.S. film industry has a documented history of taking money to display tobacco products and smoking. Paid tobacco product placement is now prohibited by legal agreement between the major tobacco companies and top law enforcement officials, yet highly-advertised U.S. cigarette brands still appear in movies worldwide; smoking in U.S. films has returned to the level of 1950; and the balance of smoking incidents continues to shift from R-rated (over 17) to PG-13 (youth-rated) motion pictures.

A reasonable solution, respecting freedom of expression, is available. Updating its own rating system, administered by the Motion Picture Association of America, the U.S. film industry could easily keep smoking out of future movies marketed to adolescents, cutting their exposure — and consequent injury — by at least half. Violence, strong language and sexual content are already voluntarily calibrated to achieve a coveted PG-13 rating. The toxic effect of smoking on screen should be treated at least as seriously as offensive language.

The U.S. film industry knows that smoking on screen kills in real life. It is incumbent upon the studios and the media conglomerates that own them to take meaningful action as swiftly as possible. I join young people, parents, community leaders and health professionals around the world petitioning Motion Picture Association of America members to adopt a smokefree policy for youth-rated films. The largest generation of young people in world history deserves no less.