It’s official: smoking in films influences teens. Newspapers around the nation on 11 June 2003 reported a new study—published online that day in The Lancet—that surveyed 3500 adolescents who had never smoked, and assessed their exposure to smoking in movies. A follow-up survey some time later found that those who had watched ‘hard-smoking’ movies were up to three times more likely to take up the habit themselves. Health groups have called for an ‘R’ rating on all films with frequent smoking scenes.

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