A Chinese tobacco-control expert has called for screens to be free of smoking scenes so as to better protect viewers, particularly the minors.

Currently, both home-made and imported TV series and films contain smoking scenes, which had a negative impact on viewers, especially minors as they tend to follow and mirror others, Xu Guihua, deputy director of the Chinese Association on Tobacco Control(CATC) was quoted by Thursday's China Daily as saying.

Study shows that young people aged between 13 to 18, who often see smoking scenes in movies and TVs, are 16 times more likely to become smokers than their counterparts.

Among 144 box-office hit movies from 2004 to 2009, of which 66 were imported, about 69 percent contain tobacco-related scenes such as people smoking a cigarette or cigar, with ash tray or lighters in the background, a study jointly launched by CATC and the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has found.

More than 76 percent of domestic films contain smoking scenes, compared with one-third of imported ones, according to Yang Jie, deputy director of the tobacco control office under CDC.

Smoking scenes are included in TV and movie productions because directors receive “contributions” from tobacco companies, the newspaper quoted Feng Yuanzheng, a Beijing-based actor and CATC anti-tobacco volunteer, as saying.

Xu Guihua has also called for movie and TV regulators to beef up supervision over productions for tobacco control.

Movies with tobacco scenes should be denied the opportunity to compete in any awards, she said.

Source:Xinhua