Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt has joined 42 other state and territory attorneys general in suggesting that the entertainment industry take steps to help reduce the exposure of youth to tobacco imagery in video content.

 

Schmidt and the attorneys general have sent letters to five guilds of the creative community, urging the streaming industry to limit tobacco imagery in their content. In 2012, the U.S. Surgeon General concluded that watching movies with tobacco imagery increases the likelihood that adolescents will become smokers.

 

In the letters, the bipartisan coalition has urged the creative guilds to depict tobacco imagery more responsibly while still supporting creative freedoms. The letters encourage the streaming community to take several steps, including:

 

• Adopt best practices that steer young viewers away from content with tobacco imagery, including excluding tobacco imagery in future content targeting children;
• Only recommend and promote tobacco-free titles for children and families; 
• Mitigate the historic and cumulative impact of watching tobacco imagery by running strong anti-tobacco spots, especially before content with smoking or vaping;
• Display prominent and forceful tobacco warnings before content with tobacco imagery; and
• Offer effective parental controls, so families may be empowered to choose smoke-free content.

 

Full copies of the letters sent to the creative guilds can be seen here.