http://www.local8now.com/content/news/MPAA-Cigarette-ban-in-movies-in-an-infringement-of-free-speech-387810002.html
(WVLT) — According to the Hollywood Reporter, the Motion Picture Association of America is reponding to a lawsuit, saying the restriction of tobacco imagery in movies is an infringement on free speech.
You can read the original report on hollywoodreporter.com.
The plaintiffs want any movie with tobacco imagery to be rated R.
According to the CDC, the more smoking young people see on the screen, the more likely they are to start smoking themselves. The CDC cited a Surgeon General’s Report that showed an industry-wide standard of rating movies that show tobacco use as R-rated could result in reductions in youth smoking. It could reduce the number of teen smokers by nearly one in five and prevent 1 million deaths from smoking among children alive today.
You can read the full CDC report on cdc.gov.