Smoking on screen and TV

• TMA member companies do not take part in product placement activities, nor do they pay producers to use their product in films or television series.
• Filmmakers use props to reflect historical events or real life in films and many people in the real world smoke. Filmmakers may choose to use tobacco products among such props.
• The TMA believes a proposal that films with smoking scenes should be 18-rated is a disproportionate and unnecessary measure, which is not supported by credible evidence. The Department of Health did not include smoking in films as a predictor of youth smoking initiation in its recent consultation in 2008; it did list age and sex, home environment, drug use and drinking alcohol, truancy and exclusion from school.
• The TMA agrees that under-aged persons should not smoke and that they should not have access to tobacco products. TMA and our member companies are major stakeholders in the UK wide ID scheme CitizenCard and the ‘No ID, No Sale’ campaign.  We also support rigorous enforcement of the existing law on under-age sales