teens and smoking studies

Teens lured by screen smoking, tobacco promotions
Movies that feature cigarettes, as well as the tobacco industry's smoking-related promotions, prompt teenagers to smoke, according to a recent report. Although smoking declined to 21% of the U.S. adult population in 2006 from 42% in 1965, some 4,000 teenagers still light up for the first time each day and 1,000 of them become habitual smokers.
Zosia Kmietowicz. (2008). BMA calls for ban on smoking images that "keep the habit cool" among children British Medical Journal, 337:a713


Mass media has the power to both encourage tobacco use, especially among young people, and to discourage it. This is the first report to make the conclusion that there is a causal relationship between exposure to depiction of smoking in the movies and youth beginning to smoke
Melanie Wakefield. (2008). The Role of the Media in Promoting and Reducing Tobacco Use. Reckvill, MD: U. S. National Cancer Institute.
cancercontrol.cancer.gov/tcrb/monographs/19/docs/M19MediaFactSheet.pdf