Prevention Matters

The week between Christmas and New Year's Day is a peak time for movie theater attendance and, according to one group, the most recent crop of holiday releases gave tobacco use considerable exposure. Scenesmoking.org, project that routinely rates movies on the extent and type of their tobacco-related content, gave its worst rating - the "black lung" - to five of the top 10 releases on the week of Dec. 28.

"Avatar," "Sherlock Holmes," "The Blind Side," "Nine," and "Did You Hear about the Morgans?" all received "black lung ratings. There was apparently no middle ground for movie-makers, as the rest of the top 10 were deemed "pink lung" movies, which are the group's highest rating. The "pink lung" movies included "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakque," "It's Complicated," "Up in the Air," "The Princess and the Frog," and "Invictus."

Scenesmoking.org is a project of Breathe California of Sacramento-Emigrant Trails.