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Smoking movies 'should be 18-rated'
An anti-smoking group reportedly wants all films which contain smoking scenes to be given an adult rating.
SmokeFree Liverpool is behind the move, which is backed by the city council and comes amid research showing youngsters pick up the bad habit from viewing movies containing smoking, according to the BBC.
Andy Hull, the Merseyside city's head of public protection and chair of SmokeFree Liverpool, told the BBC that an adult rating on movies depicting smoking would reduce the number of young people lighting up a cigarette.
"The international evidence...is that one in two children between 11 and 18 who witness smoking in movies actually experiment with - and therefore start - smoking themselves," Mr Hull is quoted as saying.
Liverpool is known as the lung cancer capital of England and has some of the highest smoking rates in the UK.
Mr Hull said Liverpool wanted the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) to give movies with smoking scenes an 18 certificate, though a spokeswoman for the BBFC said smoking and alcohol use were already taken into consideration when a film is given a rating.
He added that a blanket 18 certificate for all smoking scenes would be "heavy handed".
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Thursday 09 February 2012
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