An "R" rating for smoking will cut the amount of smoking in the movies kids see by at least half. The research tells us that an "R" rating would prevent almost 200,000 adolescents from starting to smoke every year and avert 50-60,000 tobacco deaths a year in coming decades.

In 2007, the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine concluded that an R rating would reduce youth exposure to smoking in movies and, so, adolescent smoking initiation, and recommended that smoking be integrated into the criteria for an "R" rating.

How the “R” for smoking works

Rating tobacco “R” isn’t meant to block teens from seeing more movies. What it really does is create a voluntary market incentive for producers to keep smoking out of the movies designed to be marketed to teens.

On average, movies rated PG-13 gross twice as much at the box office as R-rated movies do. No producer will think it is worthwhile to release a film rated “R” for smoking alone. The result will less smoking in future movies that would otherwise be rated PG-13 and younger.

The major studios resist this solution. Yet they already calibrate language, violence and sexual situations to conform to the ratings — the industry’s voluntary, self-administered age-classification system. According to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA):

"The basic mission of the rating system is a simple one: To offer parents some advance information about movies so that parents can decide what movies they want their children to see or not to see."

This is especially critical in the case of tobacco because children of non-smoking parents are the most vulnerable. Heavy exposure to on-screen smoking makes these adolescents 4.1 times more likely to start smoking, compared to "only" 1.6 times more likely when their parents smoke.

Decades of MPAA precedent

The film industry should take tobacco promotion at least as seriously as it takes cursing. Here’s how the MPAA rating has long dealt with “f” words:

"More than one such expletive must lead the Rating Board to issue a film an R rating, as must even one of these words used in a sexual context. These films can be rated less severely, however, if by a special vote the Rating Board feels that a lesser rating would more responsibly reflect the opinion of American parents."

The MPAA can update its ratings — and protect public health — simply by substituting the phrase “smoking imagery” for “expletive” in existing policy:

"Even one use of tobacco or presentation of tobacco advertising or similar pro-tobacco imagery must lead the Rating Board to issue a film an R rating. These films can be rated less severely, however, if by a special vote, the Rating Board feels that the presentation of tobacco clearly and unambiguously reflects the dangers and consequences of tobacco use or represents accurately the smoking behavior of an actual historical figure, so that a lesser rating would more responsibly reflect the opinion of American parents."

Ratings already shape content

Here’s just one example of how major studios calibrate a script or a final edit to win a desired rating:

"The whole mood at Disney changed," says [director John] Stockwell, who was ordered by the studio to tame Crazy/Beautiful's R-rated script and deliver a PG-13 movie. In the final version…the heroine will no longer smoke pot onscreen, the F word will be used only once (the limit for a PG-13 movie), and no one will say "three-way." — Time, July 2, 2001

How do the studios argue against the R-rating?

Answer: Between 1999 and 2004, the MPAA gave 428 American movies an “R” rating — almost half of all U.S. movies. Does this mean that the MPAA restricted the creative freedom of the people who made these movies? Of course not. Indeed, many of these movies are award-winners. Movie makers would remain absolutely free to include smoking in any movie they want. As with other content that triggers an “R,” (like the “f” word), they would do so knowing it would receive an “R.”

“It’s a form of censorship.”

Answer: The rating system is voluntary and administered by the film industry itself. The studios control it — no government agency is involved. The First Amendment protects us against government censorship. It has nothing to do with the voluntary age-classification system set up and operated by film companies. The big studios must be persuaded to make kids’ movies non-toxic. (More on the censorship argument.)

“Tobacco is a legal product.”

Answer: Violence, rough language and sexual expression not judged obscene by community standards are also perfectly legal, yet the film industry’s own rating system applies to them. Why not include tobacco? Unlike four-letter words, smoking kills millions.

“It’s a slippery slope.”

Answer: The film industry is regularly targeted by people who object to certain kinds of content, from graphic violence to bare skin. That’s why the rating system exists. But the on-screen smoking in kid-rated movies is the only imagery conclusively proven to lead to more U.S. deaths than criminal violence, drunk driving and illegal drugs combined. This is a major medical issue, not a matter of bad taste.

What about a PG-13 (or PG-13/S) rating?

Adding a tobacco “label” to a PG-13 movie would reduce children’s and teens’ combined exposure by less than 5%. The R-rating, by keeping almost all G, PG and PG-13 films clear of tobacco, would have four times as much impact on children 6-11 — and twenty-five times as much impact on teens.

An “R” may be only 50% efficient at keeping those younger than seventeen from seeing R-rated movies at the mall, but it will prove 100% effective at keeping tobacco out of G, PG and (most importantly) PG-13 films.

Conclusion? Anything less than an R-rating treats nothing except the studios’ growing public relations problem.