Less smokers due to drop in on-screen smoking

Decline in on-screen smoking is considered to be a possible factor in the decline in cigarette use among middle and high school students.Tobacco use appeared on-screen 595 times in 2010 which is a 71.6 percent drop from 2005. Tobacco use in films produced by Time Warner, Disney and Comcast dropped 95.8 percent from 2005 to 2010. From 2000 to 2009, tobacco use among middle school students declined from 15.1 percent to 8.2 percent and among high school students from 34.5 percent to 23.9 percent. The World Health Organization and other groups have recommended an automatic R rating for movies featuring tobacco use.The drop in on-screen tobacco use largely can be attributed to policies by three major film studios, Time Warner, Disney and Comcast, which discourage smoking in their films.