On April 22, 2015, Vivek H. Murthy took the oath of office to serve as US Surgeon General for the next four years. His wide-ranging speech dealt with several aspects of tobacco control, including announcing that, “I want 100% tobacco-free campuses at every college and university in America. We’re already one-quarter of the way there. We in the federal government should lead by example, making our federal campuses – and over one million units of public housing – tobacco-free, too.”
He also addressed the problem of smoking in movies. Referring to Disney CEO Robert Iger’s public announcement that there would no longer be any smoking in any films Disney distributed, Murthy said,
“In the great American community, more companies will follow the example of Disney, which has committed to eliminating smoking from all its movies watched by children. We could save over a million children from premature death if every film studio followed suit.”
We are all, of course, waiting to see what the Disney policy actually is – the company has not yet published the actual policy on its web site – to see if there any loopholes. But having this kind of recognition from the new Surgeon General ought to make it harder for Disney to include loopholes.
More important, Surgeon General Murthy has reminded everyone that getting smoking out of youth-rated films (that is,R-rating future films with smoking) would save a million kids’ lives.
You can read his whole speech here.