Posted on 08/05/2002 10:44:58 AM PDT by GeneD
The Italian health minister has proposed legislation that would require a health warning to be posted on screen whenever an actor or actress lights a cigarette. The proposal by the minister, Dr. Girolamo Sirchia, a surgeon, follows a report by Italian researchers that a cigarette appears on TV screens every seven minutes during primetime. Britain's Guardian newspaper quoted famed actor Giancarlo Giannini, himself a reformed smoker, as describing the idea as folly. "Anyone can go to the tobacconist to buy cigarettes while it will become impossible to enjoy a film in peace," he said.
Monday August 5, 2002
The next time Humphrey Bogart appears on a cinema screen in Italy, it might be with a health warning. The health minister has come up with a novel way of combating nicotine addiction: a warning flashing up as a subtitle when an actor lights a cigarette.
According to the proposal floated this week, Bogart's smoky mystique in Casablanca could be undercut by the message: "Warning, this is pro-smoking propaganda".
Legislation introduced in January imposes a £160 fine for anyone caught smoking in a no-smoking zone. Now the minister, Girolamo Sirchia, wants to tackle the problem at its source.
Mr Sirchia, a surgeon by profession, wrote to the three national television companies, drawing their attention to the pernicious influence of the cinema in promoting smoking among the young.
He was not calling for censorship, he explained, but for government health warnings to accompany the most risqué tobacco-wreathed scenes. Researchers have estimated that a cigarette appears on TV screens every seven minutes during prime time programming aimed at the young.
The actor Giancarlo Giannini, a repented smoker, described the idea as folly. "Anyone can go to the tobacconist to buy cigarettes while it will become impossible to enjoy a film in peace," he said.
Michael
This will backfire. It will only make people mad and rebellious. I doubt it will even be allowed.
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