According to an American Medical Association Alliance national campaign, movies for a youthful audience should not feature anyone smoking.

Lately, school board members approved a decision for submission to the Texas Association of School Boards that maintains giving an R rating to most movies with tobacco use in any scene.

The program item was introduced by school board member Mia Price, ex-president of the Texas Medical Association Alliance. She says: “It’s really a good, good initiative. The National School Boards Association already endorses the resolution and if enough organizations get on board, it could have significant bearing on the movie industry.”

Melissa Walthers, project coordinator says: “More than 50 organizations have endorsed the “Screen Out!” campaign, and the national medical alliance is still advocating for more groups and parents to get involved. The alliance’s push, which started in 2006, is just one part of what’s going on nationwide. There are other national campaigns asking for the same solutions, such as the Smoke Free Movies campaign, with supporting groups numbering in the hundreds.”

Walthers also added: “A historical film about Winston Churchill or a movie scene of people with emphysema smoking on their deathbeds would be exempt from the proposed rating rule. The American Medical Association Alliance just wants to stop the glamorization of smoking in movies geared at teens and younger children.”

The campaign also calls for 3 other changes in American movies:

1) that a strong anti-tobacco advertisement should be shown before a movie that shows smoking

2) that movie producers assure that no one involved benefited materially by smoking in the motion picture

3) that tobacco brands must not be identified in movies.

Walthers says: “It is going to protect kids from picking up this deadly addiction. Our biggest success is getting the public to actually see this as a children’s health issue.”

The MPAA certified in 2007 that it would consider smoking, in addition to violence, sex and adult language, when rating films.