EDITORIAL

Take 2: Let's try it without the cigarette

NO sex. No drugs. No rock 'n' roll. Well, maybe rock 'n' roll.

With all the special interests asking Hollywood to satisfy a particular
agenda, what's an independentminded film maker to do? Our suggestion is to
think seriously about at least one request: Stop glamorizing smoking for
impressionable kids.

At a Los Angeles hearing Monday held by state Sen. John Burton, the health
and antismoking industries argued that the increasing number of characters
lighting up on screen are luring teenagers to smoke.

The percentage of teenagers who smoke is on the rise in this country; and
studies show that kids who see positive depictions of smoking in movies are
more likely to think taking a drag is OK.

Burton insists he has no interest in pursuing legislation against the
entertainment industry to curtail onscreen smoking. We agree with him. But
we do hope that movie makers think twice before putting a cigarette in a
character's hand that wouldn't logically be there in real life.

We're not suggesting that the recent movie ``Boogie Nights,'' about the
porn industry in the 1970s, should be smokefree. But one study cited at
the hearing found that 80 percent of lead male characters in topgrossing
pictures from 1991 to 1996 smoked that's more than three times the
national average.

Surely, some of that puffing was gratuitous. And lots of it was done by
actors playing rich, successful, healthy characters not exactly a
realistic depiction of smokers among the general population.

Hollywood has taken up causes before in a desire to promote healthier
behavior. Most films these days don't glamorize unsafe sex or drinking and
driving.

Yet cigarettes kill more Americans each year than AIDS, alcohol, car
accidents, murders, suicides, drugs and fires combined. And almost 90
percent of adult smokers developed the habit at age 18 or younger.

Film making is an artistic process, one that we have no desire to regulate.
We only ask that Hollywood consider the awesome influence the industry has
over children before it casually depicts heros lighting up on screen.