July 26, 2007

SAN DIEGO (Cox News Service) -- Disney is trying to kick the habit.

Responding to pressure from lawmakers and anti-smoking groups, Walt Disney Co. said Wednesday it will do more to discourage depictions of smoking in films made by its Disney, Touchstone and Miramax subsidiaries, and will eventually eliminate them altogether from its Disney-branded films.

It also said it would add anti-smoking public service announcements on any future DVD that contain depictions of smoking, and also plans to work with theater owners to run similar announcements before any film with smoking depictions.

Disney gave no timetable for snuffing out smoking in its films.

Its announcement comes a month after a congressional hearing in which big media companies were warned that they should do more to discourage smoking and violence in movies.

"Disney's decision to take a stand against smoking is ground-breaking," Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who chaired the hearing, said in a statement Wednesday. "Now it's time for other media companies to similarly kick the habit and follow Disney's lead."

The American Lung Association said in a statement, "We commend Disney for banning depictions of smoking in some of their films, but believe that the policy should also ban depictions of smoking in all of their studios, including Miramax and Touchstone."

About 75 percent of movies made by Disney or its subsidiaries between 1999 and 2006 contained scenes depicting smoking. That included about half of its youth-oriented movies and nearly a third that had a G rating for all audiences, according to Smoke Free Movies, a project run by a University of California at San Francisco medical professor.

Many were period pieces, such as "Pirates of the Caribbean II" or "The Chronicles of Narnia," set in times when smoking was more commonplace. However, they included kid hits such as "102 Dalmatians" and "Inspector Gadget," according to Smoke Free Movies.

Recent studies have shown that youths who see smoking in movies are more likely to take up the habit themselves. A 2005 study by Dartmouth Medical School, for instance, found that exposure to smoking in movies played a part in helping encourage more than one-third of U.S. adolescents ages 10 to 14 to try smoking.

In May, the Motion Picture Association of America announced it will consider smoking -- along with sex, violence and language -- in determining whether it rates a film R, NC-17, PG-13, PG or G.

Some critics complain that the MPAA has given few specifics on how it will weigh smoking, however, and suggest that the group should simply give any film that depicts smoking an R rating.