News
On Friday, Nevada County youth will have the chance to stomp and cat-call in a darkened theater, sending a message that celebrities with cigs don't belong in movies for a general audience.
The free event, “Stomp Out Tobacco in Movies,” features a showing of “Home Alone” at 3 p.m. Friday, Dec. 2, at the Del Oro Theatre, 163 Mill St., downtown Grass Valley.
Movies directed at children and youth, and which also depict tobacco products, range from scenes as startling as Sigourney Weaver's call for cigarettes in “Avatar” to those as contextual as hobbits with pipes in “Lord of the Rings” and a caterpillar with a hookah in the latest “Alice in Wonderland.”
Even "Home Alone" has a character who smokes while he hatches his plot.
They all are coming under the scrutiny of local health officials and youth advocates, who say they contribute to a sense a among the young that it's cool to smoke.
Youth Opposing the Use of Tobacco for Health Coalition and Coalition for a Drug Free Nevada County are cosponsoring Friday's event in the hope awareness will prevent local youth from dying due to smoking-related ills.
Recent research shows the brain's region for logical thinking doesn't fully develop in males until they are about 27, and in females until about 21.
That means young people who see actors puffing “don't decipher that that's not really what people do in real life,” said Nevada County Tobacco Use Prevention Project Director Felicia Sobonya.
Across the nation, an estimated 390,000 teenagers start smoking every year, influenced by scenes of smoking in movies; one-third of them can expect to die from smoking-related causes, according to county Public Health.
ooo
To contact Senior Staff Writer Trina Kleist, e-mail tkleist@theunion.com or call (530) 477-4230.
The free event, “Stomp Out Tobacco in Movies,” features a showing of “Home Alone” at 3 p.m. Friday, Dec. 2, at the Del Oro Theatre, 163 Mill St., downtown Grass Valley.
Movies directed at children and youth, and which also depict tobacco products, range from scenes as startling as Sigourney Weaver's call for cigarettes in “Avatar” to those as contextual as hobbits with pipes in “Lord of the Rings” and a caterpillar with a hookah in the latest “Alice in Wonderland.”
Even "Home Alone" has a character who smokes while he hatches his plot.
They all are coming under the scrutiny of local health officials and youth advocates, who say they contribute to a sense a among the young that it's cool to smoke.
Youth Opposing the Use of Tobacco for Health Coalition and Coalition for a Drug Free Nevada County are cosponsoring Friday's event in the hope awareness will prevent local youth from dying due to smoking-related ills.
Recent research shows the brain's region for logical thinking doesn't fully develop in males until they are about 27, and in females until about 21.
That means young people who see actors puffing “don't decipher that that's not really what people do in real life,” said Nevada County Tobacco Use Prevention Project Director Felicia Sobonya.
Across the nation, an estimated 390,000 teenagers start smoking every year, influenced by scenes of smoking in movies; one-third of them can expect to die from smoking-related causes, according to county Public Health.
ooo
To contact Senior Staff Writer Trina Kleist, e-mail tkleist@theunion.com or call (530) 477-4230.
