Smokers in Hollywood: By all means, unmask pretty people with an ugly habit

Commentary

Katherine Heigl, star of last year's blockbuster film "Knocked Up" and the TV show "Grey's Anatomy," may be the new "it" girl in Hollywood. But in a Washington Post story, writer William Booth focused on Heigl's smoking habit, not her fame. (The story ran in The Seattle Times' Northwest Life section on Tuesday; online at www.seattletimes.com/entertainment).

The actress started smoking in her early 20s, bumming cigarettes from friends. She eventually went on to buying her own packs. She has tried to quit a number of times, using medication, gum and the patch. She still smokes, though, insisting that it's "hard" to quit.

I started smoking as a young teen, smoked for 15 years, and quit just two months ago. It surely is a very hard thing to do, and I am not even certain that I have broken the habit completely in these two months. I dream about smoking. I think about it and crave it still.

I liked Booth's story because he peppered it with words like "carbon monoxide" and "cancerous," words not commonly associated with profiles about young, beautiful megastars. I never get to hear about longtime smoker Johnny Depp's tar-tinged, phlegm-filled coughs. There is a deficit of news about Jennifer Aniston's yellow fingernails and stinky hair.

I am a skeptic when it comes to studies about how Hollywood stars affect the smoking habits of regular Americans. I frankly doubt that seeing paparazzi photos of Lindsay Lohan smoking on the balcony of the latest rehab center she's stayed in is going to get young girls to smoke. I don't know if the tough-guy picture of Brad Pitt smoking in "Fight Club" inspired a generation of equally tough guys to smoke.

Stan Glantz at the University of California at San Francisco, however, has dedicated much of his adult life to nonsmokers' rights and, in recent years, has found links between smoking in the movies and its influence on teens. Glantz is considered the Ralph Nader of the anti-tobacco movement.

I spoke with Dr. Glantz in October, days before I quit smoking.

"Basically," he says, "movies are the main reason teens start smoking. They are not the only reason, but they are the main reason."

Glantz insists he has been saying this for years, with little support from his anti-smoking comrades. Starting in 2002, however, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention named tobacco in the movies a major factor in teen smoking. Then in 2007, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences made similar conclusions.

According to Glantz's Web site, http://smokefreemovies.ucsf.edu/, the institute concluded that:

• Exposure to depictions of smoking in movies is associated with more favorable attitudes toward smoking and characters who smoke, and these positive views are particularly prevalent among youth who themselves smoke.

• Exposure to smoking in movies increases the risk for smoking initiation ... studies provide clear support that youth report greater susceptibility and intentions to smoke and are more likely to actually try smoking following exposure to smoking in the movies and on television. Furthermore, even after controlling for other factors known to be associated with adolescent smoking intention and tobacco use, studies show a clear dose effect, whereby greater exposure to smoking in the movies is associated with a greater chance of smoking.

Glantz says he was thrilled by the conclusions made in the study, available online at www.iom.edu.

"After several years of banging our heads against the wall, there is some movement on this subject," Glantz says. He says he hopes more people will visit his UCSF Web site to see which movies have smoking in them and which do not.

I would hate to think that my favorite movies and movie stars (or musicians for that matter) helped me pick up the habit when I was 15.

If they did, as studies seem to show, I hope that more people get behind Glantz's work at UCSF and ask Hollywood to stop inserting smoking in teenage-friendly movies.

And maybe, just maybe, more journalists will write pieces about Hollywood movie stars with the tone of Booth's piece, one that paints an ugly picture of an ugly habit that even beautiful movie stars have a hard time kicking.