State Attorneys General have been urging the film industry to reduce kids’ exposure to smoking on screen. They have been involved in the issue of smoking in the movies since at least the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement, which they negotiated with domestic tobacco companies, to end tobacco promotion aimed at young people, including product placement.

The AGs’ concern has grown over the years, along with the scientific evidence that smoking in movies is a major reason that adolescents start to smoke. But the film industry has failed to take any substantial action.

2003 | Twenty-seven Attorneys General wrote the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) expressing concern about the growth of smoking in the movies and its effects on teens.

2005 | Thirty-two AGs wrote the studios urging them to include an anti-smoking ad on any DVD of a movie that included smoking.

2006 | Forty-one AGs again wrote the studios (and MPAA) renewing their call for anti-smoking ads on any DVD or movie that included smoking. To make it easy, they included three Truth® advertisements by the American Legacy Foundation that the studios could use at no cost. Only The Weinstein Company accepted the offer.

October 5, 2006 | MPAA CEO Dan Glickman wrote the Attorneys General that the MPAA had invited recommendations from the Harvard School of Public Health and would work to "gain consensus" among its member studios to implement them.

February 23, 2007 | Consistent with Smoke Free Movies' policy solutions, Harvard recommended that the MPAA "take substantive and effective action to eliminate the depiction of tobacco smoking from films accessible to children and youths..."

May 1, 2007 | Thirty-one AGs followed up with another letter to the studios containing the strongest language to date:

[E]ach time a member of the industry releases another movie that depicts smoking, it does so with the full knowledge of the harm it will bring to children who watch it...

[E]liminate the depiction of tobacco smoking from films accessible to children and youth. There is simply no justification for further delay.

[Read actual letters to Disney, Fox, Lionsgate, Paramount, Sony, Universal, Warner Bros., Weinstein Company, the MPAA, National Organization of Theatre Owners (NATO), the Directors Guild of America, Screen Actors Guild, and Writers Guild.

May 10, 2007 | With much fanfare, the MPAA announces that it will “consider” tobacco imagery in the ratings starting immediately. However, for the goal of eliminating tobacco content in movies accessible to young people, it substitutes another: merely informing parents — the sort of “fig leaf” that Harvard had specifically warned against.

Leading health organizations quickly denounce the MPAA’s placebo policy. They pledge to keep pressing for the “R” rating and other measures that can substantially and permanently reduce adolescent exposure. (The statements from the American Medical Association, American Heart Association, American Legacy Foundation, and Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids were typical.)

June 5, 2007 | Vermont AG William H. Sorrell, a leader amongst a group of 32 state AGs who have pressured the MPAA, writes the MPAA to tell them that:

... we reserve judgement on whether your proposal, which falls short of the recommendations you sought and recieved from the Harvard School of Public Health, will in actual practice have a dramatic impact on the incidence of youth viewing of smoking in the movies. [emphasis added]

Sorrell then asks for prompt reports on the impacts of the MPAA's tobacco rating policy monthly or bimonthly; detail exactly how the MPAA's announced rating policy would have affected treatment of the U.S. film industry's releases over recent years; and explain gross differences between the MPAA's movie smoking statistics and numbers compiled from publicly available sources.

June 18, 2007 | The MPAA responds to Attorney General Sorrell, offering a meeting instead of answering his questions; Sorrell then again asks the MPAA to respond in writing to the questions before any meeting. He requests a written reply by September 3.

August 16, 2007 |The MPAA refuses to answer the Attorney General's questions.

September 16, 2007 | Attorney General Sorrell writes the MPAA's Glickman declining his offer of a meeting because of MPAA's failure to provide "information to help us evaluate the impact of the new MPAA rating system. He also reminds Glickman that, "We had hoped that the MPAA and its member studios would follow the Harvard School of Public Health recommendation [solicited by the MPAA] that depictions of tobacco smoking be eliminated fro films accessible to children and youth."

June 2, 2009 | Attorney General Sorrell sends a letter directly to the CEOs of the major media companies that own the studios, as well as to large independent distributors Lionsgate and Weinstein. He critiques the MPAA's rating failure; cites new evidence that exposure to on-screen smoking causes teens to become addicted smokers; applauds 2008 agreements to show anti-tobacco spots on DVDs with smoking; and recommends one studio's certification of "due diligence affirming that no compensation was received in exchange for any tobacco depiction." General Sorrell again urges all studios to "eliminate the depiction of tobacco use from films accessible to youth."

Please take a moment to write Attorney Generals listed below. Encourage them to help media companies bring genuine change to their studio subsidiaries.

State Attorneys General copied on AG Sorrell's letter to media CEOs, June 2, 2009:

• Honorable Terry Goddard
  Attorney General of Arizona
  1275 West Washington Street
  Phoenix, AZ 85007
  Phone: (602) 542-5025
  Fax: (602) 542-4085

• Honorable Dustin McDaniel
  Attorney General of Arkansas
  200 Tower Bldg.
  323 Center Street, Suite 1100
  Little Rock, AR 72201-2610
  Phone: (501) 682-2007
  Fax: (501) 682-8084

• Honorable Richard Blumenthal
  Attorney General of Connecticut
  55 Elm Street
  Hartford, CT 06141-0120
  Phone: (860) 808-5318
  Fax: (860) 808-5387

• Honorable Joseph R. “Beau” Biden III
  Attorney General of Delaware
  Carvel State Office Building
  820 N. French Street
  Wilmington, DE 19801
  Phone: (302) 577-8400
  Fax: (302) 577-6630
  Email: Attorney.General@State.DE.US

• Honorable Peter Nickles
  Attorney General of District of Columbia
  441 4th Street, NW, Suite 1145S
  Washington, DC 20001
  Phone: (202) 727-3400

• Honorable Bill McCollum
  Attorney General of Florida
  The Capitol PL-01
  Tallahassee, FL 32399-1050
  Phone: (850) 414-3300
  Fax: (850) 410-1630

• Honorable Alicia G. Limtiaco
  Attorney General of Guam
  287 West O'Brien Drive
  Hagatna, GU 96910
  Phone: (671) 475-3324
  Fax: (671) 472-2493
  Email: law@guamattorneygeneral.com

• Honorable Mark J. Bennett
  Attorney General of Hawaii
  425 Queen Street
  Honolulu, HI 96813
  Phone: (808) 586-1500
  Fax: (808) 586-1239
  Email: hawaiiag@hawaii.gov

• Honorable Lisa Madigan
  Attorney General of Illinois
  500 South Second Street
  Springfield, IL 62706
  Phone: (217) 782-1090

• Honorable Tom Miller
  Attorney General of Iowa
  1305 E. Walnut Street
  Des Moines, IA 50319
  Phone: (515) 281-5164
  Fax: (515) 281-4209

• Honorable Steve Six
  Attorney General of Kansas
  120 SW 10th Ave., 2nd Floor
  Topeka, KS 66612-1597
  Phone: (785) 296-2215
  Fax: (785) 296-6296

• Honorable Jack Conway
  Attorney General of Kentucky
  The Capital, Suite 118
  700 Capital Avenue
  Frankford, Kentucky 40601-3449
  Phone: (502) 696-5300
  Fax: (502) 564-2894
  Email: Attorney.General@ag.ky.gov

• Honorable Douglas F. Gansler
  Attorney General of Maryland
  200 Saint Paul Place
  Baltimore, MD 21202-2021
  Phone: (410) 576-6311
  Fax: (410) 576-7036

• Honorable Jim Hood
  Attorney General of Mississippi
  Carroll Gartin Justice Building
  450 High Street
  Jackson, MS 39201
  Phone: 601-359-3680
  Email: msag05@ago.state.ms.us

• Honorable Chris Koster
  Attorney General of Missouri
  Supreme Court Building
  207 W. High St.
  P.O. Box 899
  Jefferson City, MO 65102
  Phone: 573-751-3321
  Fax: 573-751-0774
  Email: ag@ago.mo.gov

• Honorable Catherine Cortez Mastro
  Attorney General of Nevada
  Old Supreme Ct. Bldg.
  100 N. Carson St.
  Carson City, NV 89701
  Phone: (775) 684-1100
  Fax: (775) 684-1108

• Honorable Kelly Ayotte
  Attorney General of New Hampshire
  State House Annex
  33 Capitol Street
  Concord, NH 03301-6397
  Phone: (603) 271-3658
  Fax: (603) 271-2110

• Honorable Anne Milgram
  Attorney General of New Jersey
  Richard J. Hughes Justice Complex
  25 Market St., CN 080
  Trenton, NJ 08625-0080
  Phone: (609) 292-4925
  Fax: (609) 292-3508

• Honorable Gary King
  Attorney General of New Mexico
  P.O. Drawer 1508
  Santa Fe, NM 87504-1508
  Phone: (505) 827-5843
  Fax: (505) 476-0478

• Honorable Andrew Cuomo
  Attorney General of New York
  The Capitol, 2nd Floor
  Albany, NY 12224
  Phone: (212) 416-8050
  Fax: (212) 416-8139

• Honorable Richard Cordray
  Attorney General of Ohio
  State Office Tower
  30 E. Broad Street, 17th Floor
  Columbus, OH 43215-3428
  Phone: (614) 466-4320

• Honorable W.A. Drew Edmondson
  Office of the Attorney General of Oklahoma
  313 NE 21st Street
  Oklahoma City, OK 73105
  Phone: (405) 521-3921