Disney films to quit smoking -- gradually

SAN DIEGO -- Disney is trying to kick the habit.

Responding to pressure from lawmakers and anti-smoking groups, Walt Disney Co. said Wednesday it will do more to discourage depictions of smoking in films made by its Disney, Touchstone and Miramax subsidiaries. It plans to eliminate images of smoking from Disney-branded films altogether.

Disney also said it would add antismoking public service announcements to any future DVD that contains depictions of smoking, and that it plans to work with theater owners to run similar announcements before any film with smoking depictions.

Disney gave no timetable for snuffing out smoking in its films.

Its announcement comes a month after a congressional hearing in which big media companies were warned that they should do more to discourage smoking and violence in movies.

"Disney's decision to take a stand against smoking is ground-breaking," Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who led the hearing, said in a statement. "Now it's time for other media companies to similarly kick the habit."

About 75 percent of movies made by Disney or its subsidiaries between 1999 and 2006 contained scenes depicting smoking. That included about half of its youth-oriented movies and nearly a third that had a G rating, according to Smoke Free Movies, run by a University of California at San Francisco medical professor.

Many were period pieces, such as "Pirates of the Caribbean II" or "The Chronicles of Narnia," set in times when smoking was more common. However, they included films geared at children, such as "102 Dalmatians" and "Inspector Gadget."

Recent studies have shown that youths who see smoking in movies are more likely to take up the habit. A 2005 study by Dartmouth Medical School, for instance, found that exposure to smoking in movies played a part in helping encourage more than one-third of U.S. adolescents ages 10 to 14 to try smoking.

The Motion Picture Association of America has said it will consider smoking -- along with sex, violence and language -- in determining a film's rating.